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# 13.1. `csv` — CSV File Reading and Writing

New in version 2.3.

The so-called CSV (Comma Separated Values) format is the most common import and export format for spreadsheets and databases. There is no “CSV standard”, so the format is operationally defined by the many applications which read and write it. The lack of a standard means that subtle differences often exist in the data produced and consumed by different applications. These differences can make it annoying to process CSV files from multiple sources. Still, while the delimiters and quoting characters vary, the overall format is similar enough that it is possible to write a single module which can efficiently manipulate such data, hiding the details of reading and writing the data from the programmer.

The `csv` module implements classes to read and write tabular data in CSV format. It allows programmers to say, “write this data in the format preferred by Excel,” or “read data from this file which was generated by Excel,” without knowing the precise details of the CSV format used by Excel. Programmers can also describe the CSV formats understood by other applications or define their own special-purpose CSV formats.

The `csv` module’s `reader` and `writer` objects read and write sequences. Programmers can also read and write data in dictionary form using the `DictReader` and `DictWriter` classes.

Note

This version of the `csv` module doesn’t support Unicode input. Also, there are currently some issues regarding ASCII NUL characters. Accordingly, all input should be UTF-8 or printable ASCII to be safe; see the examples in section Examples. These restrictions will be removed in the future.

See also

PEP 305 - CSV File API
  The Python Enhancement Proposal which proposed this addition to Python.

## 13.1.1. Module Contents

The `csv` module defines the following functions:

`csv.``reader`(csvfile[, dialect='excel'][, fmtparam])

  Return a reader object which will iterate over lines in the given csvfile. csvfile can be any object which supports the iterator protocol and returns a string each time its `next()` method is called — file objects and list objects are both suitable. If csvfile is a file object, it must be opened with the ‘b’ flag on platforms where that makes a difference. An optional dialect parameter can be given which is used to define a set of parameters specific to a particular CSV dialect. It may be an instance of a subclass of the `Dialect` class or one of the strings returned by the `list_dialects()` function. The other optional fmtparam keyword arguments can be given to override individual formatting parameters in the current dialect. For full details about the dialect and formatting parameters, see section Dialects and Formatting Parameters.

  Each row read from the csv file is returned as a list of strings. No automatic data type conversion is performed.

  A short usage example:

      >>> import csv
      >>> spamReader = csv.reader(open('eggs.csv', 'rb'), delimiter=' ', quotechar='|')
      >>> for row in spamReader:
      ...     print ', '.join(row)
      Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans
      Spam, Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam

  Changed in version 2.5: The parser is now stricter with respect to multi-line quoted fields. Previously, if a line ended within a quoted field without a terminating newline character, a newline would be inserted into the returned field. This behavior caused problems when reading files which contained carriage return characters within fields. The behavior was changed to return the field without inserting newlines. As a consequence, if newlines embedded within fields are important, the input should be split into lines in a manner which preserves the newline characters.

`csv.``writer`(csvfile[, dialect='excel'][, fmtparam])

  Return a writer object responsible for converting the user’s data into delimited strings on the given file-like object. csvfile can be any object with a `write()` method. If csvfile is a file object, it must be opened with the ‘b’ flag on platforms where that makes a difference. An optional dialect parameter can be given which is used to define a set of parameters specific to a particular CSV dialect. It may be an instance of a subclass of the `Dialect` class or one of the strings returned by the `list_dialects()` function. The other optional fmtparam keyword arguments can be given to override individual formatting parameters in the current dialect. For full details about the dialect and formatting parameters, see section Dialects and Formatting Parameters. To make it as easy as possible to interface with modules which implement the DB API, the value `None` is written as the empty string. While this isn’t a reversible transformation, it makes it easier to dump SQL NULL data values to CSV files without preprocessing the data returned from a `cursor.fetch*` call. All other non-string data are stringified with `str()` before being written.

  A short usage example:

      >>> import csv
      >>> spamWriter = csv.writer(open('eggs.csv', 'wb'), delimiter=' ',
      ...                         quotechar='|', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
      >>> spamWriter.writerow(['Spam'] * 5 + ['Baked Beans'])
      >>> spamWriter.writerow(['Spam', 'Lovely Spam', 'Wonderful Spam'])

`csv.``register_dialect`(name[, dialect][, fmtparam])
  Associate dialect with name. name must be a string or Unicode object. The dialect can be specified either by passing a sub-class of `Dialect`, or by fmtparam keyword arguments, or both, with keyword arguments overriding parameters of the dialect. For full details about the dialect and formatting parameters, see section Dialects and Formatting Parameters.

`csv.``unregister_dialect`(name)
  Delete the dialect associated with name from the dialect registry. An `Error` is raised if name is not a registered dialect name.

`csv.``get_dialect`(name)

  Return the dialect associated with name. An `Error` is raised if name is not a registered dialect name.

  Changed in version 2.5: This function now returns an immutable `Dialect`. Previously an instance of the requested dialect was returned. Users could modify the underlying class, changing the behavior of active readers and writers.

`csv.``list_dialects`()
  Return the names of all registered dialects.

`csv.``field_size_limit`([new_limit])

  Returns the current maximum field size allowed by the parser. If new_limit is given, this becomes the new limit.

  New in version 2.5.

The `csv` module defines the following classes:

class `csv.``DictReader`(csvfile[, fieldnames=None[, restkey=None[, restval=None[, dialect='excel'[, *args, **kwds]]]]])
  Create an object which operates like a regular reader but maps the information read into a dict whose keys are given by the optional fieldnames parameter. If the fieldnames parameter is omitted, the values in the first row of the csvfile will be used as the fieldnames. If the row read has more fields than the fieldnames sequence, the remaining data is added as a sequence keyed by the value of restkey. If the row read has fewer fields than the fieldnames sequence, the remaining keys take the value of the optional restval parameter. Any other optional or keyword arguments are passed to the underlying `reader` instance.

class `csv.``DictWriter`(csvfile, fieldnames[, restval=''[, extrasaction='raise'[, dialect='excel'[, *args, **kwds]]]])

  Create an object which operates like a regular writer but maps dictionaries onto output rows. The fieldnames parameter identifies the order in which values in the dictionary passed to the `writerow()` method are written to the csvfile. The optional restval parameter specifies the value to be written if the dictionary is missing a key in fieldnames. If the dictionary passed to the `writerow()` method contains a key not found in fieldnames, the optional extrasaction parameter indicates what action to take. If it is set to `'raise'` a `ValueError` is raised. If it is set to `'ignore'`, extra values in the dictionary are ignored. Any other optional or keyword arguments are passed to the underlying `writer` instance.

  Note that unlike the `DictReader` class, the fieldnames parameter of the `DictWriter` is not optional. Since Python’s `dict` objects are not ordered, there is not enough information available to deduce the order in which the row should be written to the csvfile.

class `csv.``Dialect`
  The `Dialect` class is a container class relied on primarily for its attributes, which are used to define the parameters for a specific `reader` or `writer` instance.

class `csv.``excel`
  The `excel` class defines the usual properties of an Excel-generated CSV file. It is registered with the dialect name `'excel'`.

class `csv.``excel_tab`
  The `excel_tab` class defines the usual properties of an Excel-generated TAB-delimited file. It is registered with the dialect name `'excel-tab'`.

class `csv.``Sniffer`

  The `Sniffer` class is used to deduce the format of a CSV file.

  The `Sniffer` class provides two methods:

  `sniff`(sample[, delimiters=None])
    Analyze the given sample and return a `Dialect` subclass reflecting the parameters found. If the optional delimiters parameter is given, it is interpreted as a string containing possible valid delimiter characters.
  `has_header`(sample)
    Analyze the sample text (presumed to be in CSV format) and return `True` if the first row appears to be a series of column headers.

An example for `Sniffer` use:

    csvfile = open("example.csv", "rb")
    dialect = csv.Sniffer().sniff(csvfile.read(1024))
    csvfile.seek(0)
    reader = csv.reader(csvfile, dialect)
    # ... process CSV file contents here ...

The `csv` module defines the following constants:

`csv.``QUOTE_ALL`
  Instructs `writer` objects to quote all fields.

`csv.``QUOTE_MINIMAL`
  Instructs `writer` objects to only quote those fields which contain special characters such as delimiter, quotechar or any of the characters in lineterminator.

`csv.``QUOTE_NONNUMERIC`

  Instructs `writer` objects to quote all non-numeric fields.

  Instructs the reader to convert all non-quoted fields to type float.

`csv.``QUOTE_NONE`

  Instructs `writer` objects to never quote fields. When the current delimiter occurs in output data it is preceded by the current escapechar character. If escapechar is not set, the writer will raise `Error` if any characters that require escaping are encountered.

  Instructs `reader` to perform no special processing of quote characters.

The `csv` module defines the following exception:

exception `csv.``Error`
  Raised by any of the functions when an error is detected.

## 13.1.2. Dialects and Formatting Parameters

To make it easier to specify the format of input and output records, specific formatting parameters are grouped together into dialects. A dialect is a subclass of the `Dialect` class having a set of specific methods and a single `validate()` method. When creating `reader` or `writer` objects, the programmer can specify a string or a subclass of the `Dialect` class as the dialect parameter. In addition to, or instead of, the dialect parameter, the programmer can also specify individual formatting parameters, which have the same names as the attributes defined below for the `Dialect` class.

Dialects support the following attributes:

`Dialect.``delimiter`
  A one-character string used to separate fields. It defaults to `','`.

`Dialect.``doublequote`

  Controls how instances of quotechar appearing inside a field should be themselves be quoted. When `True`, the character is doubled. When `False`, the escapechar is used as a prefix to the quotechar. It defaults to `True`.

  On output, if doublequote is `False` and no escapechar is set, `Error` is raised if a quotechar is found in a field.

`Dialect.``escapechar`
  A one-character string used by the writer to escape the delimiter if quoting is set to `QUOTE_NONE` and the quotechar if doublequote is `False`. On reading, the escapechar removes any special meaning from the following character. It defaults to `None`, which disables escaping.

`Dialect.``lineterminator`

  The string used to terminate lines produced by the `writer`. It defaults to `'\r\n'`.

  Note

  The `reader` is hard-coded to recognise either `'\r'` or `'\n'` as end-of-line, and ignores lineterminator. This behavior may change in the future.

`Dialect.``quotechar`
  A one-character string used to quote fields containing special characters, such as the delimiter or quotechar, or which contain new-line characters. It defaults to `'"'`.

`Dialect.``quoting`
  Controls when quotes should be generated by the writer and recognised by the reader. It can take on any of the `QUOTE_*` constants (see section Module Contents) and defaults to `QUOTE_MINIMAL`.

`Dialect.``skipinitialspace`
  When `True`, whitespace immediately following the delimiter is ignored. The default is `False`.

## 13.1.3. Reader Objects

Reader objects (`DictReader` instances and objects returned by the `reader()` function) have the following public methods:

`csvreader.``next`()
  Return the next row of the reader’s iterable object as a list, parsed according to the current dialect.

Reader objects have the following public attributes:

`csvreader.``dialect`
  A read-only description of the dialect in use by the parser.

`csvreader.``line_num`

  The number of lines read from the source iterator. This is not the same as the number of records returned, as records can span multiple lines.

  New in version 2.5.

DictReader objects have the following public attribute:

`csvreader.``fieldnames`

  If not passed as a parameter when creating the object, this attribute is initialized upon first access or when the first record is read from the file.

  Changed in version 2.6.

## 13.1.4. Writer Objects

`Writer` objects (`DictWriter` instances and objects returned by the `writer()` function) have the following public methods. A row must be a sequence of strings or numbers for `Writer` objects and a dictionary mapping fieldnames to strings or numbers (by passing them through `str()` first) for `DictWriter` objects. Note that complex numbers are written out surrounded by parens. This may cause some problems for other programs which read CSV files (assuming they support complex numbers at all).

`csvwriter.``writerow`(row)
  Write the row parameter to the writer’s file object, formatted according to the current dialect.

`csvwriter.``writerows`(rows)
  Write all the rows parameters (a list of row objects as described above) to the writer’s file object, formatted according to the current dialect.

Writer objects have the following public attribute:

`csvwriter.``dialect`
  A read-only description of the dialect in use by the writer.

DictWriter objects have the following public method:

`DictWriter.``writeheader`()

  Write a row with the field names (as specified in the constructor).

  New in version 2.7.

## 13.1.5. Examples

The simplest example of reading a CSV file:

    import csv
    with open('some.csv', 'rb') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f)
        for row in reader:
            print row

Reading a file with an alternate format:

    import csv
    with open('passwd', 'rb') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f, delimiter=':', quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE)
        for row in reader:
            print row

The corresponding simplest possible writing example is:

    import csv
    with open('some.csv', 'wb') as f:
        writer = csv.writer(f)
        writer.writerows(someiterable)

Registering a new dialect:

    import csv
    csv.register_dialect('unixpwd', delimiter=':', quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE)
    with open('passwd', 'rb') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f, 'unixpwd')

A slightly more advanced use of the reader — catching and reporting errors:

    import csv, sys
    filename = 'some.csv'
    with open(filename, 'rb') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f)
        try:
            for row in reader:
                print row
        except csv.Error, e:
            sys.exit('file %s, line %d: %s' % (filename, reader.line_num, e))

And while the module doesn’t directly support parsing strings, it can easily be done:

    import csv
    for row in csv.reader(['one,two,three']):
        print row

The `csv` module doesn’t directly support reading and writing Unicode, but it is 8-bit-clean save for some problems with ASCII NUL characters. So you can write functions or classes that handle the encoding and decoding for you as long as you avoid encodings like UTF-16 that use NULs. UTF-8 is recommended.

`unicode_csv_reader()` below is a generator that wraps `csv.reader` to handle Unicode CSV data (a list of Unicode strings). `utf_8_encoder()` is a generator that encodes the Unicode strings as UTF-8, one string (or row) at a time. The encoded strings are parsed by the CSV reader, and `unicode_csv_reader()` decodes the UTF-8-encoded cells back into Unicode:

    import csv

    def unicode_csv_reader(unicode_csv_data, dialect=csv.excel, **kwargs):
        # csv.py doesn't do Unicode; encode temporarily as UTF-8:
        csv_reader = csv.reader(utf_8_encoder(unicode_csv_data),
                                dialect=dialect, **kwargs)
        for row in csv_reader:
            # decode UTF-8 back to Unicode, cell by cell:
            yield [unicode(cell, 'utf-8') for cell in row]

    def utf_8_encoder(unicode_csv_data):
        for line in unicode_csv_data:
            yield line.encode('utf-8')

For all other encodings the following `UnicodeReader` and `UnicodeWriter` classes can be used. They take an additional encoding parameter in their constructor and make sure that the data passes the real reader or writer encoded as UTF-8:

    import csv, codecs, cStringIO

    class UTF8Recoder:
        """
        Iterator that reads an encoded stream and reencodes the input to UTF-8
        """
        def __init__(self, f, encoding):
            self.reader = codecs.getreader(encoding)(f)

        def __iter__(self):
            return self

        def next(self):
            return self.reader.next().encode("utf-8")

    class UnicodeReader:
        """
        A CSV reader which will iterate over lines in the CSV file "f",
        which is encoded in the given encoding.
        """

        def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel, encoding="utf-8", **kwds):
            f = UTF8Recoder(f, encoding)
            self.reader = csv.reader(f, dialect=dialect, **kwds)

        def next(self):
            row = self.reader.next()
            return [unicode(s, "utf-8") for s in row]

        def __iter__(self):
            return self

    class UnicodeWriter:
        """
        A CSV writer which will write rows to CSV file "f",
        which is encoded in the given encoding.
        """

        def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel, encoding="utf-8", **kwds):
            # Redirect output to a queue
            self.queue = cStringIO.StringIO()
            self.writer = csv.writer(self.queue, dialect=dialect, **kwds)
            self.stream = f
            self.encoder = codecs.getincrementalencoder(encoding)()

        def writerow(self, row):
            self.writer.writerow([s.encode("utf-8") for s in row])
            # Fetch UTF-8 output from the queue ...
            data = self.queue.getvalue()
            data = data.decode("utf-8")
            # ... and reencode it into the target encoding
            data = self.encoder.encode(data)
            # write to the target stream
            self.stream.write(data)
            # empty queue
            self.queue.truncate(0)

        def writerows(self, rows):
            for row in rows:
                self.writerow(row)

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