Reading strings from csv does not print \n

Question

Im reading strings from a csv file. These strings contain "\n" chars to represent new lines. How can I print these strings with the correct new lines? Using str() didn't work.

CSV File has only one line:

Dest, Test\n Test2\n Test3

The code below prints Test\n Test2\n Test3

for ifile in files:
    with open(orderPath + '\\' + ifile) as csv_file:
        csv_reader = csv.reader(csv_file, delimiter=',')

        for row in csv_reader:

            dest = row[0]
            message = row[1]

            message = str(message)
            print(message)

Can you try passing the newline='' parameter in the open() function? — Chris, Feb 18 '20 at 21:26
Does this answer your question? [Specify Newline character ('\n') in reading csv using Python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40476677/specify-newline-character-n-in-reading-csv-using-python) — Chris, Feb 18 '20 at 21:27
How is the one line in the csv file supposed to be interpreted? — martineau, Feb 18 '20 at 22:09

martineau · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-19T11:25:37.453

It's unclear precisely how you want the data in the csv file to be interpreted, but here's a guess. It uses the ast.literal_eval() function to convert the escape characters in the input data into newline characters.

This involves enclosing the second column in triple double-quotes (""") characters to allow it to interpreted as Python string literal. Triple quotes are used in case the enclosed text itself contains quotes. For example: Dest, Test\n "Test2"\n Test3

import ast
import csv

filename = 'one_line.csv'

with open(filename, newline='') as csv_file:
    for row in csv.reader(csv_file, delimiter=','):
        dest = row[0]
        message = ast.literal_eval('"""{}"""'.format(row[1]))
        print(dest)
        print(message)

Output:

Dest
 Test
 Test2
 Test3

Thank you that's what I needed! – YvesN Feb 19 '20 at 11:11 — YvesN, Feb 19 '20 at 11:11

JBGreen · Answer 2 · 2020-02-18T21:46:29.323

0

If I understand correctly, you want to replace the sequence of literal characters '\' and 'n' in your input with newlines:

Instead of:

message = str(message)

You want:

message = message.replace('\\n', '\n')

edited Feb 18 '20 at 21:46

answered Feb 18 '20 at 21:41

JBGreen

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Reading strings from csv does not print \n

2 Answers2