CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythoncsvdelimiter
hydi
hydi

Reputation: 435

How to use delimiter for CSV in Python?

I'm having trouble with figuring out how to use the delimiter for csv.writer in Python. I have a CSV file in which the strings separated by commas are in single cell and I need to have each word in each individual cell, e.g:

100 , 2559  ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK
140 , 425   ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK
100 , 599   ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK

should have each word in an individual cell:

100 2559    Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK
140 425     Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK
100 599     Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK

I tried:

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'wb')

csv.writer(f, delimiter =' ',quotechar =',',quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)

Upvotes: 41

Views: 247704

Answers (3)

Milovan Tomašević
Milovan Tomašević

Reputation: 8663

CSV Files with Custom Delimiters

By default, a comma is used as a delimiter in a CSV file. However, some CSV files can use delimiters other than a comma. Few popular ones are | and \t.

import csv
data_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, delimiter='|')
    writer.writerows(data_list)

output:

SN|Name|Contribution
1|Linus Torvalds|Linux Kernel
2|Tim Berners-Lee|World Wide Web
3|Guido van Rossum|Python Programming

Write CSV files with quotes

import csv

row_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC, delimiter=';')
    writer.writerows(row_list)

output:

"SN";"Name";"Contribution"
1;"Linus Torvalds";"Linux Kernel"
2;"Tim Berners-Lee";"World Wide Web"
3;"Guido van Rossum";"Python Programming"

As you can see, we have passed csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC to the quoting parameter. It is a constant defined by the csv module.

csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC specifies the writer object that quotes should be added around the non-numeric entries.

There are 3 other predefined constants you can pass to the quoting parameter:

  • csv.QUOTE_ALL - Specifies the writer object to write CSV file with quotes around all the entries.
  • csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL - Specifies the writer object to only quote those fields which contain special characters (delimiter, quotechar or any characters in lineterminator)
  • csv.QUOTE_NONE - Specifies the writer object that none of the entries should be quoted. It is the default value.
import csv

row_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC,
                        delimiter=';', quotechar='*')
    writer.writerows(row_list)

output:

*SN*;*Name*;*Contribution*
1;*Linus Torvalds*;*Linux Kernel*
2;*Tim Berners-Lee*;*World Wide Web*
3;*Guido van Rossum*;*Python Programming*

Here, we can see that quotechar='*' parameter instructs the writer object to use * as quote for all non-numeric values.

Upvotes: 3

abhishekgarg
abhishekgarg

Reputation: 1473

ok, here is what i understood from your question. You are writing a csv file from python but when you are opening that file into some other application like excel or open office they are showing the complete row in one cell rather than each word in individual cell. I am right??

if i am then please try this, 

import csv

with open(r"C:\\test.csv", "wb") as csv_file:
    writer = csv.writer(csv_file, delimiter =",",quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
    writer.writerow(["a","b"])

you have to set the delimiter = ","

Upvotes: 9

underrun
underrun

Reputation: 6841

Your code is blanking out your file:

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'wb') # opens file for writing (erases contents)
csv.writer(f, delimiter =' ',quotechar =',',quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)

if you want to read the file in, you will need to use csv.reader and open the file for reading.

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'rb') # opens file for reading
reader = csv.reader(f)
for line in reader:
    print line

If you want to write that back out to a new file with different delimiters, you can create a new file and specify those delimiters and write out each line (instead of printing the tuple).

Upvotes: 35

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