How to read a file with a semi colon separator in pandas
Question:
I a importing a .csv
file in python with pandas.
Here is the file format from the .csv
:
a1;b1;c1;d1;e1;...
a2;b2;c2;d2;e2;...
.....
here is how get it :
from pandas import *
csv_path = "C:...."
data = read_csv(csv_path)
Now when I print the file I get that :
0 a1;b1;c1;d1;e1;...
1 a2;b2;c2;d2;e2;...
And so on… So I need help to read the file and split the values in columns, with the semi color character ;
.
Answers:
read_csv
takes a sep
param, in your case just pass sep=';'
like so:
data = read_csv(csv_path, sep=';')
The reason it failed in your case is that the default value is ','
so it scrunched up all the columns as a single column entry.
In response to Morris’ question above:
"Is there a way to programatically tell if a CSV is separated by , or ; ?"
This will tell you:
import pandas as pd
df_comma = pd.read_csv(your_csv_file_path, nrows=1,sep=",")
df_semi = pd.read_csv(your_csv_file_path, nrows=1, sep=";")
if df_comma.shape[1]>df_semi.shape[1]:
print("comma delimited")
else:
print("semicolon delimited")
I a importing a .csv
file in python with pandas.
Here is the file format from the .csv
:
a1;b1;c1;d1;e1;...
a2;b2;c2;d2;e2;...
.....
here is how get it :
from pandas import *
csv_path = "C:...."
data = read_csv(csv_path)
Now when I print the file I get that :
0 a1;b1;c1;d1;e1;...
1 a2;b2;c2;d2;e2;...
And so on… So I need help to read the file and split the values in columns, with the semi color character ;
.
read_csv
takes a sep
param, in your case just pass sep=';'
like so:
data = read_csv(csv_path, sep=';')
The reason it failed in your case is that the default value is ','
so it scrunched up all the columns as a single column entry.
In response to Morris’ question above:
"Is there a way to programatically tell if a CSV is separated by , or ; ?"
This will tell you:
import pandas as pd
df_comma = pd.read_csv(your_csv_file_path, nrows=1,sep=",")
df_semi = pd.read_csv(your_csv_file_path, nrows=1, sep=";")
if df_comma.shape[1]>df_semi.shape[1]:
print("comma delimited")
else:
print("semicolon delimited")