NOTES

WORKING WITH CSV FILES

INTRODUCTION
When you export data from Website, the files can be delivered in the
following formats
1. CSV - COMMA SEPARATED VALUES
2. PSV - PIPE SEPARATED VALUES
3. TSV - TAB SEPARATED VALUES

CSV - COMMA SEPARATED VALUES

A CSV(Comma Separated Values) is a plain-text file format used to store tabular
data such as a spreadsheet or a database. It essentially stores a tabular data which
comprises of numbers and text into plain text.

WHAT IS A CSV FILE?

A CSV(Comma Separated Values) is a plain-text file format used to store
tabular data such as a spreadsheet or a database. It essentially stores a tabular data
which comprises numbers and text into plain text. Many online services allow its
users to export tabular data from the website into a CSV file.

Files of CSV will open into Excel, and nearly all databases have a tool to allow
import from CSV file. The standard format is defined by rows and columns data.
Moreover, each row is terminated by a newline to begin the next row. Also within the
row, each column is separated by a comma.

The CSV file is commonly used to represent tabular data. For example,
consider the following table:

To retain the commas inside the Address field enclose it in double quotation
marks, as follows:

Tabular data is represented by comma separated values

Page no 1
RollNo,Name,Age,Class,Sec

1023,Vishwa,14,VII,A

3078,Varun,16,X,B

3543,Gowtham,15,X,C

Every line of the file is called a record. And each record consists of fields that
are separated by commas which are also known as “delimiter” which is the default
delimiter, others include pipe(|), semicolon(;). Given below is a structure of a Normal
CSV File separated by a comma

WHY IS CSV FILE FORMAT USED?

CSV is a plain-text file which makes it easier for data interchange and also
easier to import onto spreadsheet or database storage.

For example: You might want to export the data of a certain statistical analysis
to CSV file and then import it to the spreadsheet for further analysis. Overall it makes
users working experience very easy programmatically. Any language supporting a
text file or string manipulation like Python can work with CSV files directly.

CSV ADVANTAGES
✔ CSV is human readable and easy to edit manually
✔ CSV is simple to implement and parse
✔ CSV is processed by almost all existing applications
✔ CSV provides a straightforward information schema
✔ CSV is faster to handle
✔ CSV is smaller in size
✔ CSV is considered to be standard format
✔ CSV is compact.
✔ CSV is easy to generate

CSV DISADVANTAGES
✔ CSV allows to move most basic data only. Complex configurations
cannot be imported and exported this way
✔ There is no distinction between text and numeric values

Page no 2
 ✔ No standard way to represent binary data
✔ Problems with importing CSV into SQL (no distinction between NULL and
quotes)
✔ Poor support of special characters
✔ No standard way to represent control characters
✔ Lack of universal standard

PYTHON CSV MODULE

Python uses a CSV package which is a part of the standard library, so you need
not install it.

Python CSV package contains following functions:

Ser Functions Description

1 csv.field_size_limit It returns the maximum field size

2 csv.get_dialect Fetches the dialect associated with name

3 csv.list_dialects Displays all the registered dialects

4 csv.reader Read data from csv file

5 csv.register_dialect Dialect associated with a name

6 csv.writer Writes data to a csv file

It deletes the dialect associated with the
7 csv.unregister_dialect name dialect registry

8 csv.QUOTE_ALL Quotes everything irrespective of the type

9 csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL Quotes special character field

10 csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC Quotes fields that are not numeral

11 csv.QUOTE_NONE Doesn’t quote anything in output

Page no 3
READING AND WRITING FILES

The csv module is used for reading and writing files. It mainly provides following
classes and functions:

1. reader()

2. writer()

1.READING A CSV FILE WITH reader()

The reader() function takes a file object and returns a _csv.reader object that can be
used to iterate over the contents of a CSV file. The syntax of reader() function is as
follows:

Syntax: csvreaderobject = csv.reader(fileobject)

Let's say we have following CSV file:

employees.csv

1id,name,email,age,designation
21,John,john@mail.com,24,programmer
32,Bob,bob@mail.com,34,designer
43,Mary,mary@mail.com,43,sales

import csv

with open('employees.csv', 'rt') as f:

csv_reader = csv.reader(f)

for line in csv_reader:

print(line)

Here is how to read this CSV file:

Expected Output:

1['id', 'name', 'email', 'age', 'designation']

2['1', 'John', 'john@mail.com', '24', 'programmer']
3['2', 'Bob', 'bob@mail.com', '34', 'designer']
4['3', 'Mary', 'mary@mail.com', '43', 'sales']

Notice that each line in the CSV file is returned as a list of strings.

Page no 4
To get the data from certain fields, you can use indexing. For example:

1import csv
2
3with open('employees.csv', 'rt') as f:
4 csv_reader = csv.reader(f)
5
6 for line in csv_reader:
7 print(line[0], line[1], line[2])

Expected Output:

id name email
11 John
2john@mail.com
32 Bob bob@mail.com
43 Mary
mary@mail.com

WRITING CSV FILES WITH writer()

To write data to a CSV file we use the writer() function. It accepts the same
argument as the reader() function but returns a writer object (i.e _csv.writer):

Syntax: csvwriterobject= csv.writerow(fileobject)

The writer instance provides the following two methods to write data:

Method Description

writerow(row) Writes a single row of data and returns the number of characters
written. The row must be a sequence of strings and number.

writerows(rows Writes multiple rows of data and returns None. The rows must be
) a sequence.

Here are examples:

Example 1: Using writerow()

import csv

header = ['id', 'name', 'address', 'zip']

rows = [
[1, 'Hannah', '4891 Blackweet, Anchorage, Alaska', 99503
],
Page no 5
 [2, 'Walton', '4223 Half and Half Drive, Lemoore, California',
97401 ],
[3, 'Sam', '3952 Littlt, Akron, Ohio', 93704],
[4, 'Chris', '3192 Fln Road, Arlington, Illinois',
62677],
[5, 'Doug', '3236 Walkers Ridge Way, Burr Ridge',
61257],
]

with open('customers.csv', 'wt') as f:

csv_writer = csv.writer(f)

csv_writer.writerow(header) # write header

for row in rows:

csv_writer.writerow(row)

Example 2: Using writerows()

import csv

header = ['id', 'name', 'address', 'zip']

rows = [
[1, 'Hannah', '4891 Bltreet, Anchorage, Alaska',
99503 ],
[2, 'Walton', '4223 Hrive, Lemoore, California',
97401 ],
[3, 'Sam', '3952 Little Street, Akron, Ohio', 93704],
[4, 'Chris', '3192 Fli Road, Arlingto, Illinois',
62677],
[5, 'Doug', '3236 Walkers Ridge Way, Burr Ridge',
61257],
]

with open('customers.csv', 'wt') as f:

csv_writer = csv.writer(f)

csv_writer.writerow(header) # write header

csv_writer.writerows(rows)

The output generated by both listing will be the same and it looks like this:

customers.csv

id,name,address,zip
1,Hannah,"4891 Blackwell Street, Anchorage, Alaska",99503
2,Walton,"4223 Half and Half Drive, Lemoore,
California",97401

Page no 6
3,Sam,"3952 Little Street, Akron, Ohio",93704
4,Chris,"3192 Flinderation Road, Arlington Heights,
Illinois",62677
5,Doug,"3236 Walkers Ridge Way, Burr Ridge",61257

Page no 7