python – Creating a dictionary from a CSV file

python – Creating a dictionary from a CSV file

Create a dictionary, then iterate over the result and stuff the rows in the dictionary. Note that if you encounter a row with a duplicate date, you will have to decide what to do (raise an exception, replace the previous row, discard the later row, etc…)

Heres test.csv:

Date,Foo,Bar
123,456,789
abc,def,ghi

and the corresponding program:

import csv
reader = csv.reader(open(test.csv))

result = {}
for row in reader:
    key = row[0]
    if key in result:
        # implement your duplicate row handling here
        pass
    result[key] = row[1:]
print(result)

yields:

{Date: [Foo, Bar], 123: [456, 789], abc: [def, ghi]}

or, with DictReader:

import csv
reader = csv.DictReader(open(test.csv))

result = {}
for row in reader:
    key = row.pop(Date)
    if key in result:
        # implement your duplicate row handling here
        pass
    result[key] = row
print(result)

results in:

{123: {Foo: 456, Bar: 789}, abc: {Foo: def, Bar: ghi}}

Or perhaps you want to map the column headings to a list of values for that column:

import csv
reader = csv.DictReader(open(test.csv))

result = {}
for row in reader:
    for column, value in row.items():  # consider .iteritems() for Python 2
        result.setdefault(column, []).append(value)
print(result)

That yields:

{Date: [123, abc], Foo: [456, def], Bar: [789, ghi]}

You need a Python DictReader class. More help can be found from here

import csv

with open(file_name.csv, rt) as f:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    for row in reader:
        print row

python – Creating a dictionary from a CSV file

Help from @phil-frost was very helpful, was exactly what I was looking for.

I have made few tweaks after that so Im would like to share it here:

def csv_as_dict(file, ref_header, delimiter=None):

    import csv
    if not delimiter:
        delimiter = ;
    reader = csv.DictReader(open(file), delimiter=delimiter)
    result = {}
    for row in reader:
        print(row)
        key = row.pop(ref_header)
        if key in result:
            # implement your duplicate row handling here
            pass
        result[key] = row
    return result

You can call it:

myvar = csv_as_dict(csv_file, ref_column)

Where ref_colum will be your main key for each row.