CSV Reference

Parsing and writing delimited spreadsheets.

csv.reader

Return: Reader

Parse CSV rows into list of strings.

Used In: Processing database exports, light tabular transformations.

Syntax signature:csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=',')

Code snippet:

python

import csv
lines = 'id,name\n1,Alex'.splitlines()
reader = csv.reader(lines)
print(list(reader))

Expected Output:[['id', 'name'], ['1', 'Alex']]

Time Complexity: O(N) where N is characters size

Common Mistakes: Opening files on Windows without newline='' parameter causes blank lines between rows.

Related Methods: csv.writer(), csv.DictReader()

Comparison:

csv.reader() vs csv.DictReader(): DictReader binds header keys to row elements, simplifying attributes lookup at a slight overhead.

Remember: Handles nested quotes and commas automatically.