Create a list of dictionaries in a dictionary from csv in Python

Question

I have a csv that looks like this:

Name;Category;Address
McFood;Fast Food;Street 1
BurgerEmperor;Fast Food;Way 1
BlueFrenchHorn;French;Street 12
PetesPizza;Italian;whatever
SubZero;Fast Food;Highway 6

and I want to make a dictionary with the category as keys and a list of dictionaries with the remaining data as values. So it shall look like this:

{'Fast Food' : [{'Name': 'McFood', 'Address': 'Street 1'}, 
                {'Name': 'BurgerEmperor', 'Address': 'Way 1'}],
                ...],
 'French' : [{'Name': 'BlueFrenchHorn', 'Address': 'Street12'}],
...}

(indentation here for better readability).

I tried it like the following snippet but I do not get anywhere from there:

import csv
mydict={}

with open ('food.csv', 'r') as csvfile:
        #sniff to find the format
        fileDialect = csv.Sniffer().sniff(csvfile.read(1024))
        csvfile.seek(0)
        #read the CSV file into a dictionary
        dictReader = csv.DictReader(csvfile, dialect=fileDialect)
        for row in dictReader:
            mycategory= row["Category"]
            del row("Category")
            mydict[mycategory]=row

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-17 13:10:37Z

4

Using collections.defaultdict:

import csv
from collections import defaultdict

mydict = defaultdict(list)  # <---

with open ('food.csv', 'r') as csvfile:
    fileDialect = csv.Sniffer().sniff(csvfile.read(1024))
    csvfile.seek(0)
    dictReader = csv.DictReader(csvfile, dialect=fileDialect)
    for row in dictReader:
        mycategory= row.pop("Category")
        mydict[mycategory].append(row)  # Will put a list for not-existing key

mydict = dict(mydict)  # Convert back to a normal dictionary (optional)

answered Sep 17, 2014 at 13:10

falsetru

371k69 gold badges770 silver badges660 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Create a list of dictionaries in a dictionary from csv in Python

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related