python: extracting values from csv file by row name

Question

Consider a .csv file with the following format:

John,29,21,,DF,
Sara,23,51,,DF,
John,34,27,,ER,
John,76,29,,TY,
Sara,87,93,,SAD,

I need to retrieve the value in the second column for all the rows which have 'John' written in the first column. I want to do it using a python script. I'm very new to python so I'm asking how can this be done?

Are there really spaces after the commas in your input CSV file? — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Feb 15, 2014 at 16:02
@MartijnPieters, you're right, there are no spaces. I edited the question. — Subway
– Subway, Commented Feb 15, 2014 at 16:06

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-15 16:19:13Z

1

The csv module makes this trivial:

import csv

with open(inputfilename, 'rb') as infh:
    reader = csv.reader(infh)
    for row in reader:
        if row[0] == 'John':
            print row[1]

This assumes that you are using Python 2. The Python 3 version looks like:

import csv

with open(inputfilename, newline='') as infh:
    reader = csv.reader(infh)
    for row in reader:
        if row[0] == 'John':
            print(row[1])

edited Feb 15, 2014 at 16:19

answered Feb 15, 2014 at 16:01

Martijn Pieters

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