csv writer not closing file

Question

im reading a csv file and then writing a new one:

import csv

with open(\'thefile.csv\', \'rb\') as f:
  data = list(csv.reader(f))

import collections
count         


        

Answer 1

Look at the difference:

with open('thefile.csv', 'rb') as f:
    data = list(csv.reader(f))

vs:

writer = csv.writer(open('/pythonwork/thefile_subset1.csv', 'w'))

Answer 2

with open('/pythonwork/thefile_subset1.csv', 'w') as outfile:
    writer = csv.writer(outfile)
    for row in data:
        if counter[row[11]] >= 500:
           writer.writerow(row)

Answer 3

Force the writer to clean up:

del writer

Answer 4

close the file, not the csv writer. To do this, you'll need to open the file first before instantiating your writer rather than keeping it all in one line.

import csv
import collections

with open('thefile.csv', 'rb') as f:
    data = list(csv.reader(f))

counter = collections.defaultdict(int)
for row in data:
    counter[row[11]] += 1

f.close()  # good idea to close if you're done with it

fSubset = open('/pythonwork/thefile_subset1.csv', 'w')
writer = csv.writer(fSubset)
for row in data:
    if counter[row[11]] >= 500:
        writer.writerow(row)

fSubset.close()

Also, I would suggest keeping your imports at the top of the script and closing the first file when you're done with it.

Answer 5

You can break out the open command into its own variable, so that you can close it later.

f = open('/pythonwork/thefile_subset1.csv', 'w')
writer = csv.writer(f)
f.close()

csv.writer throws a ValueError if you try to write to a closed file.