write a comma in CSV file using python

Question

hi
i want to write a text to csv file, in one place I need to write comma, and I don't know how to do it in a way that won't seperate the file to anotehr cell.
f.write('1,2,3,45,The Next comma I want to write and not seperate to anoterh cell , so this sentence will bw hole,6,7,8')
any sugesstions?
ariel

Answer 1

This is not Python specific, but is to do with the CSV "standard".

If you want to write a control character as part of your value, you'll need to escape the value by surrounding it in double-quotes:

f.write('1,2,3,45,"The Next comma I want to write and not seperate to anoterh cell , so this sentence will bw hole",6,7,8')

Edit: Although in practice, it will be a better idea to use the CSV writer interfaces as suggested by others. It's never a good idea to embroil yourself in the implementation details when there's a ready-rolled library that abstracts this away for you.

Answer 2

Use the csv module, that should handle all the escaping intricacies for you: http://docs.python.org/library/csv.html

Answer 3

Use the proper CSV writers:

>>> import csv
>>> spamWriter = csv.writer(open('eggs.csv', 'wb'))
>>> spamWriter.writerow(['Spam', 'Lovely, Spam'])

Outputs:

Spam,"Lovely, Spam"