Hi all,
I am new to Python and was wondering if I can get some help with my short
script. What I would like the script to do is:
(1) Read the tab delimited file generated by Refworks
(2) Output exactly the same file but the blank column added in front.
(This is for prepping the exported tab delimited file from refworks so that it
can be imported into MySQL; so any suggestions in the line of timtoady would be
also appreciated.)
This is what I have so far. It works, but then in the output file, I end up
getting some weird character in each line in the second column (first column in
the original input file). I also don't really get what escapechar=' ' does or
what I am supposed to put in there.
import csv
with open('noid_refworks.txt','rU') as csvinput:
with open('withid.txt', 'w') as csvoutput:
dialect = csv.Sniffer().sniff(csvinput.read(1024))
csvinput.seek(0)
reader = csv.reader(csvinput, dialect)
writer = csv.writer(csvoutput, dialect, escapechar='\'',
quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE)
for row in reader:
writer.writerow(['\t']+row)
A row in the original file is like this (Tab delimited and no quotations, some
fields have commas and quotation marks inside.):
Reference Type Authors, Primary Title Primary Periodical Full
Periodical Abbrev Pub Year Pub Date Free From Volume Issue Start
Page Other Pages Keywords Abstract Notes Personal Notes
Authors, Secondary Title Secondary Edition Publisher Place Of
Publication Authors, Tertiary Authors, Quaternary Authors, Quinary
Title, Tertiary ISSN/ISBN Availability Author/Address Accession
Number Language Classification Sub file/Database Original Foreign
Title Links DOI Call Number Database Data Source Identifying
Phrase Retrieved Date Shortened Title User 1 User 2 User 3
User 4 User 5 User 6 User 7 User 8 User 9 User 10 User 11
User 12 User 13 User 14 User 15
A row in the output file is like this:
(The tab is successfully inserted. But I don't get why I have L inserted after
no matter what I put in escapechar)
LReference Type Authors, Primary Title Primary Periodical Full
Periodical Abbrev Pub Year Pub Date Free From Volume Issue Start
Page Other Pages Keywords Abstract Notes Personal Notes
Authors, Secondary Title Secondary Edition Publisher Place Of
Publication Authors, Tertiary Authors, Quaternary Authors, Quinary
Title, Tertiary ISSN/ISBN Availability Author/Address Accession
Number Language Classification Sub file/Database Original Foreign
Title Links DOI Call Number Database Data Source Identifying
Phrase Retrieved Date Shortened Title User 1 User 2 User 3
User 4 User 5 User 6 User 7 User 8 User 9 User 10 User 11
User 12 User 13 User 14 User 15
Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated!
~Bohyun
