Can't get a desired output with csv.writer in python

Question

I spent all day trying to find a solution for this problem and as I didn't find one yet I'm coming here for you help!

I'm writing a CSV file exporter on python and I can't get it to output exactly how I want it to

let's say I have a list of strings containing several tutorial titles:

    tutorials = ['tut1', 'tut2, 'tut3']

and I want to print in the csv file's first line like this:

    First Name, Surname, StudentID, tut1, tut2, tut3

Now, this is the code I wrote to do so:

    tutStr= ' '
    for i tutorials:
          tutStr += i + ', '
    tutStr = tutStr[0:-3]

    with open('CSVexport.csv', 'wb') as csvFile:
            writer = csv.writer(csvFile, delimiter=',', quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE)
            writer.writerow(['First Name'+'Surname'+'ID number'+tutStr)

This gives me the error:
"writer.writerow(['First Name'+'Surname'+'ID number'+labString]) Error: need to escape, but no escapechar set"

now, I know that the error has to do with csv.QUOTE_NONE and that I have to set an escapechar but I really don't understand how am I supposed to do so.

if I try without the QUOTE_NONE it'll automaticalle set the quotechar to ' " ' which will give me this output

    "First Name, Surname, StudentID, tut1, tut2, tut3"   --> don't want quotation marks!!!

Any idea?

nickzam · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-15 16:15:25Z

1

If you are going to write something with writerow you need to pass a list there, not a list containing one big string separated by commas (it will appear as a string in one cell). quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL would help to quote strings that need to be quoted.

tutorials = ['tut1', 'tut2', 'tut3']
headers = ['First Name', 'Surname', 'ID number'] + tutorials
first_line = True
with open('CSVexport.csv', 'w') as csvFile:
        writer = csv.writer(csvFile, delimiter=',', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
        if first_line:
           writer.writerow(headers)
           first_line = False

edited Nov 15, 2013 at 16:15

answered Nov 15, 2013 at 15:45

nickzam

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1 Comment

user2379410 Over a year ago

For Python2: "If csvfile is a file object, it must be opened with the ‘b’ flag on platforms where that makes a difference." For Python3: "If csvfile is a file object, it should be opened with newline=''".

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