Writing string date to CSV in python

Question

import csv

s=["2017/01/30", "blah"]
CSVreport = open("test.csv", "wb")
wr = csv.writer(CSVreport)
wr.writerow(s)

CSVreport.close()

Hi, I am trying to add date that is in type String to CSV. Above is my attempt but in my test.csv, date looks like: 30/01/2017

Please help

Thanks

try `s=["'2017/01/30", "blah"]` (add a leading quote) – Jean-François Fabre Jan 31 '17 at 21:07 — Jean-François Fabre, Jan 31 '17 at 21:07
that fixed it! but I don't want a quote there.. – Taewan Kang Jan 31 '17 at 21:09 — Taewan Kang, Jan 31 '17 at 21:09

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

2

Please check this thread to convert string to data format. Converting string into datetime

I tried your steps on my machine and I could print the string exactly as "2017/01/30". So it has to be some setting in your machine, did you open the csv in excel. Try opening it in text editor like notepad or vi as Excel may manipulate the date format.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

1
1

answered Jan 31 '17 at 21:11

Amit Bhatia

36
6

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 31 '17 at 21:11

You are actually writing the date correctly in the csv file. If you open the csv file with a text editor, you will see the data is written exactly as you want.

To verify that, you can read data from the file.

import csv

s=["2017/01/30", "blah"]
CSVreport = open("test.csv", "wb")
wr = csv.writer(CSVreport)
wr.writerow(s)
CSVreport.close()

with open("test.csv", "rb") as f:
    reader = csv.reader(f)
    your_list = list(reader)
    print(your_list) # it prints --> [['2017/01/30', 'blah']]

Thank you sir! When opened with notepad, I could verify I was writing it correctly — Taewan Kang, Jan 31 '17 at 21:15

Writing string date to CSV in python

2 Answers2