So far, only the simplest option has been covered - writing information to a plain text file.
This section covers data reading and writing in CSV, JSON and YAML formats: • CSV - a tabular format of data presentation. It can be obtained, for example, by exporting data from a table or database. Similarly, data can be written in this format for further import into the table.
• JSON - a format that is often used in API. In addition, this format will allow you to save data structures such as dictionaries or lists in a structured format and then read them from a JSON file and get the same data structures in Python.
• YAML format is often used to describe playbooks. For example, it is used in
Ansible. In addition, in this format it is convenient to write manually the parameters that should be read by scripts.
84 17. Working with CSV, JSON, YAML files Data serialization is about storing data in some format that is often structured.
For example, it could be:
• files in YAML or JSON format • files in CSV format • database
YAML, JSON, CSV formats usage:
• you may have data about IP address and similar information to process in tables – table can be exported to CSV format and processed by Python • software can return data in JSON format. Accordingly, by converting this data into a Python object you can work with it and do whatever you want • YAML is very convenient to use to describe parameters – for example, it can be settings for different objects (IP addresses, VLANs, etc.) – at least knowing YAML format will be useful when using Ansible
For each of these formats, Python has a module that makes them easier to work with.
Work with CSV files
CSV (comma-separated value) - a tabular data format (for example, it may be data from a table or data from a database).
In this format, each line of a file is a line of a table. Despite the format name the separator can be not only a comma. Formats with a different separator may have their own name, for example, TSV (tab separated values), however, the name CSV usually means any separators).
writer = csv.writer(f) for row in data: writer.writerow(row)
with open('sw_data_new.csv') as f: print(f.read())
To write strings in a CSV file with quotes you should add change script this way: writer = csv.writer(f, quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC)
DictWriter With DictWriter you can write dictionaries in CSV format.
In general, DictWriter works as writer but since dictionaries are not ordered it is necessary to specify the order of columns in file. The fieldnames option is used for this purpose:
• json.load - method reads JSON file and returns Python objects • json.loads - method reads string in JSON format and returns Python objects
json.load Reading JSON file to Python object: import json
with open('sw_templates.json') as f: templates = json.load(f)
print(templates)
for section, commands in templates.items():
print(section) print('\n'.join(commands))
89 Writing Writing a file in JSON format is also fairly easy. There are also two methods for writing information in JSON format in json module: • json.dump - method writes Python object to file in JSON format • json.dumps - method returns string in JSON format
json.dumps() Convert object to string in JSON format: import json
json.dump(to_json, f) with open('sw_templates.json') as f: print(f.read())
90 Additional parameters of write methods By passing additional parameters to dump method (or dumps method) you can get a more readable output: json.dump(to_json, f, sort_keys=True, indent=2)
Work with YAML files
YAML (YAML Ain’t Markup Language) - another text format for writing data.
YAML is more human-friendly than JSON, so it is often used to describe actions in
software. Playbooks in Ansible, for example.
YAML syntax Like Python, YAML uses indents to specify the structure of document. But YAML can only use spaces and cannot use tabs. Another similarity with Python is that comments start with # and continue until the end of line
List A list can be written in one line: [switchport mode access, switchport access vlan, switchport nonegotiate, spanning-tree portfast, spanning-tree bpduguard enable]
When a list is written in such a block, each row must start with ''- '' (minus and space) and all lines in the list must be at the same indentation level.
Dictionary A dictionary with two keys: access and trunk. Values that correspond to these keys - command lists:
PyYAML module Python uses a PyYAML module to work with YAML. It is not part of the standard module library, so it needs to be installed: pip install pyyaml
Work with it is similar to csv and json modules.
Reading from YAML
Converting data from YAML file to Python objects (info.yaml file): - BS: 1550 IT: 791 id: 11 name: Liverpool to_id: 1 to_name: LONDON - BS: 1510 IT: 793 id: 12 name: Bristol to_id: 1 to_name: LONDON - BS: 1650 IT: 892 id: 14 name: Coventry to_id: 2 to_name: Manchester
92 Reading from YAML: import yaml from pprint import pprint
with open('info.yaml') as f: templates = yaml.safe_load(f)
pprint(templates)
YAML format is very convenient for storing different parameters, especially if they are filled manually.
Writing to YAML Write Python objects to YAML: import yaml
