Get pandas read csv to read empty values as empty string instead of nan

Question

I m using the pandas library to read in some CSV data   In my data  certain columns contain strings   The string  nan  is a possible value  as is an empty string   I managed to get pandas to read  nan  as a string  but I can t figure out how to get it not to read an empty value as NaN   Here s sample data and output  One Two Three a 1 one b 2 two  3 three d 4 nan e 5 five nan 6  g 7 seven   gt  gt  gt  pandas read csv  test csv   na values   One        Three            One  Two  Three 0    a    1    one 1    b    2    two 2  NaN    3  three 3    d    4    nan 4    e    5   five 5  nan    6    NaN 6    g    7  seven   It correctly reads  nan  as the string  nan   but still reads the empty cells as NaN   I tried passing in str in the converters argument to read csv  with converters   One   str     but it still reads the empty cells as NaN   I realize I can fill the values after reading  with fillna  but is there really no way to tell pandas that an empty cell in a particular CSV column should be read as an empty string instead of NaN

User · Answer

We have a simple argument in Pandas read csv for this   Use   df   pd read csv  test csv   na filter  False    Pandas documentation clearly explains how the above argument works   Link

User · Answer

I was still confused after reading the other answers and comments  But the answer now seems simpler  so here you go   Since Pandas version 0 9  from 2012   you can read your csv with empty cells interpreted as empty strings by simply setting keep default na False   pd read csv  test csv   keep default na False    This issue is more clearly explained in   More consistent na values handling in read csv    Issue  1657    pandas-dev pandas   That was fixed on on Aug 19  2012 for Pandas version 0 9 in   BUG  more consistent na values  1657    pandas-dev pandas d9abf68

User · Answer

I added a ticket to add an option of some sort here   https   github com pydata pandas issues 1450  In the meantime  result fillna     should do what you want  EDIT  in the development version  to be 0 8 0 final  if you specify an empty list of na values  empty strings will stay empty strings in the result

[python] Get pandas.read_csv to read empty values as empty string instead of nan

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