Copying columns in CSV files using Python

Question

I am currently trying to copy an entire column from a single .csv file to another new .csv file. That sounds rather simple but I keep getting a problem.

import csv
import glob

with open(r"C:\Users\n47-jones\Dropbox\Nevil Programming\test1.csv", "wb") as outfile:
    writer = csv.writer(outfile, delimiter=",")
    for csvfilename in glob.glob(r"C:\Users\n47-jones\Dropbox\Nevil Programming\testdir\*.csv"):
        with open(csvfilename, "rb") as infile:
            reader = csv.reader(infile)
            for row in reader:
                writer.writerow(row[1])

when this is output in the new test1.csv the contents of row[1] is split down into each individual letter.

eg

it goes from:

DATE |

to

D | A | T | E

I hope this makes some sense. Thanks for any help.

Nick

Answer 1

write.writerow() takes a iterable and writes it as a csv row. A string is a iterable that yield its characters.

So your problem is that instead of giving it a list you are giving it a string. If you want the csv to contain only the column you have to give it a iterable with 1 item:

writer.writerow([row[1]])