[python] How to use delimiter for csv in python

CSV Files with Custom Delimiters

By default, a comma is used as a delimiter in a CSV file. However, some CSV files can use delimiters other than a comma. Few popular ones are | and \t.

import csv
data_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, delimiter='|')
    writer.writerows(data_list)

output:

SN|Name|Contribution
1|Linus Torvalds|Linux Kernel
2|Tim Berners-Lee|World Wide Web
3|Guido van Rossum|Python Programming

Write CSV files with quotes

import csv

row_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC, delimiter=';')
    writer.writerows(row_list) 

output:

"SN";"Name";"Contribution"
1;"Linus Torvalds";"Linux Kernel"
2;"Tim Berners-Lee";"World Wide Web"
3;"Guido van Rossum";"Python Programming"

As you can see, we have passed csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC to the quoting parameter. It is a constant defined by the csv module.

csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC specifies the writer object that quotes should be added around the non-numeric entries.

There are 3 other predefined constants you can pass to the quoting parameter:

• csv.QUOTE_ALL - Specifies the writer object to write CSV file with quotes around all the entries.
• csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL - Specifies the writer object to only quote those fields which contain special characters (delimiter, quotechar or any characters in lineterminator)
• csv.QUOTE_NONE - Specifies the writer object that none of the entries should be quoted. It is the default value.

import csv

row_list = [["SN", "Name", "Contribution"],
             [1, "Linus Torvalds", "Linux Kernel"],
             [2, "Tim Berners-Lee", "World Wide Web"],
             [3, "Guido van Rossum", "Python Programming"]]
with open('innovators.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file, quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONNUMERIC,
                        delimiter=';', quotechar='*')
    writer.writerows(row_list)

output:

*SN*;*Name*;*Contribution*
1;*Linus Torvalds*;*Linux Kernel*
2;*Tim Berners-Lee*;*World Wide Web*
3;*Guido van Rossum*;*Python Programming*

Here, we can see that quotechar='*' parameter instructs the writer object to use * as quote for all non-numeric values.