1/20/2021 Reading and Writing CSV Files in Python - GeeksforGeeks
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Reading and Writing CSV Files in Python
Last Updated : 22 Jun, 2020
CSV (Comma Separated Values) format is the most common impor t and expor t format
for spreadsheets and databases. It is one of the most common methods for exchanging
data between applications and popular data format used in Data Science. It is suppor ted
by a wide range of applications. A CSV file stores tabular data in which each data field is
separated by a delimiter(comma in most cases). To represent a CSV file, it must be saved
with the .c sv file extension.
Reading from CSV file
P ython contains a module called csv for the handling of CSV files. The reader class from
the module is used for reading data from a CSV file. At first, the CSV file is opened using
the open() method in ‘r ’ mode(specifies read mode while opening a file) which returns
the file object then it is read by using the reader() method of CSV module that returns the
reader object that iterates throughout the lines in the specified CSV document.
Syntax :
csv.reader(csvfile, dialect='excel', **fmtparams
Note : The ‘with‘ keyword is used along with the open() method as it simplifies exception
handling and automatically closes the CSV file.
Example :
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Consider the below CSV file –
import csv
# opening the CSV file
with open('Giants.csv', mode ='r')as file:
# reading the CSV file
csvFile = csv.reader(file)
# displaying the contents of the CSV file
for lines in csvFile:
print(lines)
Output :
[['Steve', 13, 'A'],
['John', 14, 'F'],
['Nancy', 14, 'C'],
['Ravi', 13, 'B']]
Writing to CSV file
csv.writer class is used to inser t data to the CSV file. This class returns a writer object
which is responsible for conver ting the user ’s data into a delimited string. A CSV file
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object should be opened with newline=” other wise, newline characters inside the quoted
fields will not be interpreted correctly.
Syntax :
csv.writer(csvfile, dialect='excel', **fmtparams)
c sv.writer class provides two methods for writing to CSV. They are writerow() and
writerows().
writerow(): This method writes a single row at a time. Field row can be written using
this method.
Syntax :
writerow(fields)
writerows(): This method is used to write multiple rows at a time. This can be used to
write rows list.
Syntax :
writerows(rows)
Example :
# Python program to demonstrate
# writing to CSV
import csv
# field names
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= ['Name', 'Branch',
that you 'Year',
have read and 'CGPA']
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# data rows of csv file
rows = [ ['Nikhil', 'COE', '2', '9.0'],
['Sanchit', 'COE', '2', '9.1'],
['Aditya', 'IT', '2', '9.3'],
['Sagar', 'SE', '1', '9.5'],
['Prateek', 'MCE', '3', '7.8'],
['Sahil', 'EP', '2', '9.1']]
# name of csv file
filename = "university_records.csv"
# writing to csv file
with open(filename, 'w') as csvfile:
# creating a csv writer object
csvwriter = csv.writer(csvfile)
# writing the fields
csvwriter.writerow(fields)
# writing the data rows
csvwriter.writerows(rows)
Output :
We can also write dictionar y to the CSV file. For this the CSV module provides the
c sv.DictWriter class. This class returns a writer object which maps dictionaries onto
output rows.
Syntax :
c sv.DictWriter(c svfile, fieldnames, restval=”, extrasaction=’raise’, dialect=’excel’,
*args, **kwds)
c sv.DictWriter provides two methods for writing to CSV. They are:
writeheader(): writeheader() method simply writes the first row of your c sv file using
the pre-specified fieldnames.
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