Saving data to a CSV file using Python

problem

You have a program in Python and wish to save some data to a CSV file. This can easily be done using the pandas library.

SOLUTION

Using pandas library and DataFrame. By using DataFrame object, data are stored in a Spreadsheet style with columns and rows. Following that, they can easily be exported to a CSV. An example is shown below:

save_csv.py

				
					import pandas as pd


def save_csv():
    some_data = {
        'Color': ['blue', 'red', 'yellow', 'green'],
        'Like': [2, 3, 1, 9]
    }

    dataframe = pd.DataFrame(some_data)
    dataframe.to_csv('some_data.csv')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    save_csv()

Easy. Create the DataFrame from the data you wish to save and then call the to_csv() function giving a filename.

running

If running it in a terminal:

				
					python3 save_csv.py

output

It will create a local file some_data.csv

Opening the created CSV file in a spreadsheet application (e.g Excel or Numbers in this case):

Interestingly, the DataFrame can export data to HTML too. For example using the to_html() function:

				
					dataframe.to_html('some_data.html')

This will generate the HTML code for the <table> as shown below (opened in Firefox)

conclusion

In this post we saw how easy it is to export some data from memory to a CSV file using pandas library. The DataFrame also supports exporting to sql, excel, clipboard, json, and others. You can check out their documentation for more details.

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Ellion

Professional IT consultant, writer, programmer enthusiast interested in all sorts of coding.
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