{"id":127648,"date":"2022-08-29T19:18:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.finxter.com\/?p=626351"},"modified":"2022-08-29T19:18:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T19:18:12","slug":"python-convert-markdown-table-to-csv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/08\/29\/python-convert-markdown-table-to-csv\/","title":{"rendered":"Python Convert Markdown Table to CSV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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5\/5 – (1 vote) <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Problem<\/h2>\n

Given the following Markdown table stored in 'my_file.md'<\/code>:<\/p>\n

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |\n|-------|-----|------|------|------|\n| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |\n| 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |\n| alice | bob | carl | dave | emil |<\/pre>\n
\"\ud83d\udc0d\" Python Challenge<\/strong>: How to convert the Markdown table to a CSV file 'my_file.csv'<\/code>?<\/p>\n
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Solution<\/h2>\n
To convert a Markdown table .md<\/code> file to a CSV file in Python, first read the Markdown table file by using the f.readlines()<\/code> method on the opened<\/a> file object f<\/code>, by splitting<\/a> along the markdown table separator symbol '|'<\/code>. Clean up the resulting list (row-wise) and add all rows to a single list of lists<\/a>. Then create a DataFrame from the list of lists and use the DataFrame.to_csv()<\/a><\/code> method to write it to a CSV file.<\/p>\n
An example is shown in the following script that you can use for your own conversion exercise by replacing only the in-file and out-file names highlighted below:<\/p>\n
import pandas as pd # Convert the Markdown table to a list of lists\nwith open('my_file.md') as f: rows = [] for row in f.readlines(): # Get rid of leading and trailing '|' tmp = row[1:-2] # Split line and ignore column whitespace clean_line = [col.strip() for col in tmp.split('|')] # Append clean row data to rows variable rows.append(clean_line) # Get rid of syntactical sugar to indicate header (2nd row) rows = rows[:1] + rows[2:] print(rows)\ndf = pd.DataFrame(rows)\ndf.to_csv('my_file.csv', index=False, header=False) <\/pre>\n
The resulting CSV file 'my_file.csv'<\/code>:<\/p>\n
1,2,3,4,5\n0,0,0,0,0\n5,4,3,2,1\nalice,bob,carl,dave,emil\n<\/pre>\n
Learn More<\/h2>\n
\"\ud83c\udf0d\" Background Tutorials<\/strong>: The code uses a multitude of Python features. Check out these articles to learn more about them:<\/p>\n