Read and Write CSV files including unicode with Python 2.7
PythonCsvPython 2.7UnicodeExportPython Problem Overview
I am new to Python, and I have a question about how to use Python to read and write CSV files. My file contains like Germany, French, etc. According to my code, the files can be read correctly in Python, but when I write it into a new CSV file, the unicode becomes some strange characters.
The data is like:
And my code is:
import csv
f=open('xxx.csv','rb')
reader=csv.reader(f)
wt=open('lll.csv','wb')
writer=csv.writer(wt,quoting=csv.QUOTE_ALL)
wt.close()
f.close()
And the result is like:
What should I do to solve the problem?
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
Another alternative:
Use the code from the unicodecsv package ...
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/unicodecsv/
>>> import unicodecsv as csv
>>> from io import BytesIO
>>> f = BytesIO()
>>> w = csv.writer(f, encoding='utf-8')
>>> _ = w.writerow((u'é', u'ñ'))
>>> _ = f.seek(0)
>>> r = csv.reader(f, encoding='utf-8')
>>> next(r) == [u'é', u'ñ']
True
This module is API compatible with the STDLIB csv module.
Solution 2 - Python
Make sure you encode and decode as appropriate.
This example will roundtrip some example text in utf-8 to a csv file and back out to demonstrate:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import csv
tests={'German': [u'Straße',u'auslösen',u'zerstören'],
'French': [u'français',u'américaine',u'épais'],
'Chinese': [u'中國的',u'英語',u'美國人']}
with open('/tmp/utf.csv','w') as fout:
writer=csv.writer(fout)
writer.writerows([tests.keys()])
for row in zip(*tests.values()):
row=[s.encode('utf-8') for s in row]
writer.writerows([row])
with open('/tmp/utf.csv','r') as fin:
reader=csv.reader(fin)
for row in reader:
temp=list(row)
fmt=u'{:<15}'*len(temp)
print fmt.format(*[s.decode('utf-8') for s in temp])
Prints:
German Chinese French
Straße 中國的 français
auslösen 英語 américaine
zerstören 美國人 épais
Solution 3 - Python
There is an example at the end of the csv module documentation that demonstrates how to deal with Unicode. Below is copied directly from that example. Note that the strings read or written will be Unicode strings. Don't pass a byte string to UnicodeWriter.writerows
, for example.
import csv,codecs,cStringIO
class UTF8Recoder:
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:
def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel, encoding="utf-8-sig", **kwds):
f = UTF8Recoder(f, encoding)
self.reader = csv.reader(f, dialect=dialect, **kwds)
def next(self):
'''next() -> unicode
This function reads and returns the next line as a Unicode string.
'''
row = self.reader.next()
return [unicode(s, "utf-8") for s in row]
def __iter__(self):
return self
class UnicodeWriter:
def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel, encoding="utf-8-sig", **kwds):
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):
'''writerow(unicode) -> None
This function takes a Unicode string and encodes it to the output.
'''
self.writer.writerow([s.encode("utf-8") for s in row])
data = self.queue.getvalue()
data = data.decode("utf-8")
data = self.encoder.encode(data)
self.stream.write(data)
self.queue.truncate(0)
def writerows(self, rows):
for row in rows:
self.writerow(row)
with open('xxx.csv','rb') as fin, open('lll.csv','wb') as fout:
reader = UnicodeReader(fin)
writer = UnicodeWriter(fout,quoting=csv.QUOTE_ALL)
for line in reader:
writer.writerow(line)
Input (UTF-8 encoded):
American,美国人
French,法国人
German,德国人
Output:
"American","美国人"
"French","法国人"
"German","德国人"
Solution 4 - Python
Because str
in python2 is bytes
actually. So if want to write unicode
to csv, you must encode unicode
to str
using utf-8
encoding.
def py2_unicode_to_str(u):
# unicode is only exist in python2
assert isinstance(u, unicode)
return u.encode('utf-8')
Use class csv.DictWriter(csvfile, fieldnames, restval='', extrasaction='raise', dialect='excel', *args, **kwds)
:
- py2
- The
csvfile
:open(fp, 'w')
- pass key and value in
bytes
which are encoded withutf-8
writer.writerow({py2_unicode_to_str(k): py2_unicode_to_str(v) for k,v in row.items()})
- The
- py3
- The
csvfile
:open(fp, 'w')
- pass normal dict contains
str
asrow
towriter.writerow(row)
- The
Finally code
import sys
is_py2 = sys.version_info[0] == 2
def py2_unicode_to_str(u):
# unicode is only exist in python2
assert isinstance(u, unicode)
return u.encode('utf-8')
with open('file.csv', 'w') as f:
if is_py2:
data = {u'Python中国': u'Python中国', u'Python中国2': u'Python中国2'}
# just one more line to handle this
data = {py2_unicode_to_str(k): py2_unicode_to_str(v) for k, v in data.items()}
fields = list(data[0])
writer = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=fields)
for row in data:
writer.writerow(row)
else:
data = {'Python中国': 'Python中国', 'Python中国2': 'Python中国2'}
fields = list(data[0])
writer = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=fields)
for row in data:
writer.writerow(row)
Conclusion
In python3, just use the unicode str
.
In python2, use unicode
handle text, use str
when I/O occurs.
Solution 5 - Python
I had the very same issue. The answer is that you are doing it right already. It is the problem of MS Excel. Try opening the file with another editor and you will notice that your encoding was successful already. To make MS Excel happy, move from UTF-8 to UTF-16. This should work:
class UnicodeWriter:
def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel_tab, encoding="utf-16", **kwds):
# Redirect output to a queue
self.queue = StringIO.StringIO()
self.writer = csv.writer(self.queue, dialect=dialect, **kwds)
self.stream = f
# Force BOM
if encoding=="utf-16":
import codecs
f.write(codecs.BOM_UTF16)
self.encoding = encoding
def writerow(self, row):
# Modified from original: now using unicode(s) to deal with e.g. ints
self.writer.writerow([unicode(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 = data.encode(self.encoding)
# strip BOM
if self.encoding == "utf-16":
data = data[2:]
# 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)
Solution 6 - Python
I couldn't respond to Mark above, but I just made one modification which fixed the error which was caused if data in the cells was not unicode, i.e. float or int data. I replaced this line into the UnicodeWriter function: "self.writer.writerow([s.encode("utf-8") if type(s)==types.UnicodeType else s for s in row])" so that it became:
class UnicodeWriter:
def __init__(self, f, dialect=csv.excel, encoding="utf-8-sig", **kwds):
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):
'''writerow(unicode) -> None
This function takes a Unicode string and encodes it to the output.
'''
self.writer.writerow([s.encode("utf-8") if type(s)==types.UnicodeType else s for s in row])
data = self.queue.getvalue()
data = data.decode("utf-8")
data = self.encoder.encode(data)
self.stream.write(data)
self.queue.truncate(0)
def writerows(self, rows):
for row in rows:
self.writerow(row)
You will also need to "import types".