csv file sorting rows by columns in python without pandas

Question

My lessons with python continues and im stuck with this exercise where i have such csv:

John^Reporter^Angola
Mary^Engineer^Canada
Anna^Manager^India

and would like to achieve this:

Angola^John^Reporter
Canada^Engineer^Mary
Anna^India^Manager

so every row is sorted by content in column from left to right.

I tried with this code:

with open('file.csv', 'r') as sortrow:
    reader = csv.reader(sortrow.readlines(), delimiter='^')
    reader = sorted(reader, key=lambda x: x[0])
    with open(syspath+temppath+'/added5.csv', 'w') as sortwrite:
        writer = csv.writer(sortwrite, delimiter='^')
        for row in reader:
            writer.writerow(row)

i thought sorted(reader, key=lambda x: x[0]) will do the job but its not. Please help. Thanks in advance

Jean-François Fabre · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-21 10:18:28Z

1

With reader = sorted(reader, key=lambda x: x[0]), your key is the first column (x[0]).

In your case you don't want to sort the rows but the columns, so

1) don't sort the reader

2) just do this:

    for row in reader:
        writer.writerow(sorted(row))

full fixed code:

with open('file.csv', 'rU') as sortrow:
    reader = csv.reader(sortrow, delimiter='^')  # don't use readlines()
    with open(syspath+temppath+'/added5.csv', 'w', newline='') as sortwrite:
        writer = csv.writer(sortwrite, delimiter='^')
        for row in reader:
            writer.writerow(sorted(row))  # sort done here

note that if there was a consistency between the data of the same columns, it is lost by the column sort

edited Dec 21, 2016 at 10:18

answered Dec 21, 2016 at 8:56

Jean-François Fabre♦

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3 Comments

Lucas Over a year ago

so this line reader = sorted(reader, key=lambda x: x[2]) is always sorting columns? then how to sort every row from left to right?

Lucas Over a year ago

'for row in reader: _csv.Error: new-line character seen in unquoted field - do you need to open the file in universal-newline mode?'

Jean-François Fabre Over a year ago

ok, try open('file.csv', 'rU') and tell me (I don't have your file) (stackoverflow.com/questions/17315635/…)

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