reading a TXT file into a CSV file for writing without importing the CSV module

Question

I wrote this program to read a text file and put the contents line by line into another cvs file for writing. However, I would like to open the first txt file for reading, open another txt file for writing, and copy the contents of txt file 1 into txt file 2 without commas. For example, a line "1, 2, hello" should read "1 2 hello". I currently have it opening a csv file for writing, but I would like it to open a txt file for writing.

import csv

with open('texfile.txt', 'r') as in_file:
    stripped = (line.strip() for line in in_file)
    lines = (line.split(",") for line in stripped if line)
    with open('csvfile.csv', 'w') as out_file:
        writer = csv.writer(out_file)
        writer.writerows(lines)

You can look at the source for the csv module and see what it does. — Ken White, Mar 27 '17 at 17:50
Why don't you want to import the `csv` module? You can't use a `csv.writer` without importing the module — Ben, Mar 27 '17 at 17:51
"I would like to do this without importing the CSV function in my program" - That is a bad idea. — TigerhawkT3, Mar 27 '17 at 17:53
@KenWhite fixed question. I meant I'm currently opening it into a CSV file for writing but would like to do the same thing except open it in a txt file. — J.D., Mar 27 '17 at 17:54
Or do you want to simply remove all commas from an ordinary text file? Is it supposed to be a CSV at all? — TigerhawkT3, Mar 27 '17 at 17:57
@TigerhawkT3 I want to open the first txt file for reading, and read in each line to another txt file for writing without commas. For example, a line "1, 2, hello" should read "1 2 hello". I currently have it opening a csv file for writing — J.D., Mar 27 '17 at 17:57
It sounds like your question has literally nothing to do with the CSV format and all you want to do is remove all of a certain character from a file. — TigerhawkT3, Mar 27 '17 at 17:58
JD wants to take a TXT file in which has commas, remove the commas and save the file as .csv but really with the space delimiter. — Garren S, Mar 27 '17 at 17:59
Looks like my suspicions were correct; this has nothing at all to do with CSV and all you want to do is remove all instances of a certain character from a file. — TigerhawkT3, Mar 27 '17 at 18:03

Garren S · Answer 1 · 2017-03-27T17:57:55.090

0

Assuming your input txt file is safe to parse via the simple ".split()" function (as you've specified), writing to a basic CSV file should be straightforward:

with open('csvfile.csv', 'w') as out_file:
  for line in lines:
    out_file.write(" ".join(line) + "\n")

NOTE: Using the CSV module would still be best.

edited Mar 27 '17 at 17:57

answered Mar 27 '17 at 17:52

Garren S

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This will add extra spaces. I think OP might simply want `with open(a) as i, open(b, 'w') as o: b.write(a.read().replace(',', ''))`. – TigerhawkT3 Mar 27 '17 at 18:00

reading a TXT file into a CSV file for writing without importing the CSV module

1 Answers1