Is there a difference between read_table and read_csv in pandas?

Question

I\'ve tested it and also checked the documentation with no visible differences.Either way i wanted to ask just in case.

Do you think that read_csv should be used only fo

Answer 1

The only difference is in fact the default value for the sep argument.

read_csv uses sep=',', read_table uses sep='\t' and that's it.

We can confirm this with the help of the inspect module by getting the signature parameters as ordered mappings.

import inspect                                                                                                     
import pandas as pd                                                                                                

params_csv = inspect.signature(pd.read_csv).parameters                                                                
params_table = inspect.signature(pd.read_table).parameters

There are only two elements in the symmetric difference of the parameters which both correspond to the sep argument and its different default value for the two functions.

>>> params_csv.items() ^ params_table.items()                                                                                
{('sep', ), ('sep', )}