How to use delimiter for csv in python

Question

I'm having trouble with figuring out how to use the delimiter for csv.writer in Python. I have a csv file in which the strings separated by commas are in single cell and I need to have each word in each individual cell. For ex:

   100 , 2559   ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK
   140 , 425    ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK
   100 , 599    ,,Main, St,LEOMA,LEOMA,498,498, AK,AK

should be

   100  2559        Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK
   140  425     Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK
   100  599     Main    St  LEOMA   LEOMA   498 498 AK  AK

(each word in individual cell).

I tried:

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'wb')

csv.writer(f, delimiter =' ',quotechar =',',quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)

Answer 1

Your code is blanking out your file:

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'wb') # opens file for writing (erases contents)
csv.writer(f, delimiter =' ',quotechar =',',quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)

if you want to read the file in, you will need to use csv.reader and open the file for reading.

import csv
workingdir = "C:\Mer\Ven\sample"
csvfile = workingdir+"\test3.csv"
f=open(csvfile,'rb') # opens file for reading
reader = csv.reader(f)
for line in reader:
    print line

If you want to write that back out to a new file with different delimiters, you can create a new file and specify those delimiters and write out each line (instead of printing the tuple).