[Tut] How to Convert Tab-Delimited File to CSV in Python?

[Tut] How to Convert Tab-Delimited File to CSV in Python? - Printable Version

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[Tut] How to Convert Tab-Delimited File to CSV in Python? - xSicKxBot - 08-14-2022

How to Convert Tab-Delimited File to CSV in Python?

5/5 – (1 vote)

The easiest way to convert a tab-delimited values (TSV) file to a comma-separated values (CSV) file is to use the following three lines of code:

Code:
import pandas as pd
Code:
df = pd.read_csv('my_file.txt', sep='\t', header=None)
Code:
df.to_csv('my_file.csv', header=None)

We’ll explain this and other approaches in more detail next—scroll down to Method 3 for this exact method.

Problem Formulation

Given a tab-delimited file with one tab character

Code:
'\t'

between two values in a given column.

Input:

Code:
'my_file.tsv'

Figure: File

Code:
'my_file.tsv'

with tab

Code:
'\t'

separated values.

Code:
Alice	DataScience	$100000
Bob	Programmer	$90000
Carl	Manager	$122000
Dave	Freelancer	$144000

How to convert the tab-delimited values (TSV) to a comma-separated values (CSV) file?

Output:

Code:
'my_file.csv'

Code:
0,Alice,DataScience,$100000
1,Bob,Programmer,$90000
2,Carl,Manager,$122000
3,Dave,Freelancer,$144000

We’ll also look at slight variations of this problem. Let’s go!

Method 1: String Replace Single Tab

The most straightforward way to convert a tab-delimited (TSV) to a comma-separated (CSV) file in Python is to replace each tabular character

Code:
'\t'

with a comma

Code:
','

character using the

Code:
string.replace()

method. This works if two values are separated by exactly one tabular character.

Here’s an example input file

Code:
'my_file.tsv'

Here’s an example of some code to convert the tab-delimited file to the CSV file:

Code:
with open('my_file.tsv') as f: # Read space-delimited file and replace all empty spaces by commas data = f.read().replace('\t', ',') # Write the CSV data in the output file print(data, file=open('my_file.csv', 'w'))

Output file

Code:
'my_file.csv'

If you have any doubts, feel free to dive into our related tutorials:

Method 2: Regex Replace Arbitrary Tabs

To replace one

Code:
'\t'

or more tabs

Code:
'\t\t\t'

between two column values with a comma

Code:
','

and obtain a CSV, use the regular expressions operation

Code:
re.sub('[\t]+', ',', data)

on the space-separated

Code:
data

.

If you have any doubts, feel free to dive into our related tutorials:

Here’s an example input file

Code:
'my_file.tsv'

, notice the additional tabular characters that may separate two column values:

[Image: image-16.png]

Here’s an example of some code to convert the TSV to the CSV file:

Code:
import re with open('my_file.txt') as infile: # Read space-delimited file and replace all empty spaces by commas data = re.sub('[ ]+', ',', infile.read()) # Write the CSV data in the output file print(data, file=open('my_file.csv', 'w'))

Output file

Code:
'my_file.csv'

Method 3: Pandas read_csv() and to_csv()

To convert a tab-delimited file to a CSV, first read the file into a Pandas DataFrame using

Code:
pd.read_csv(filename, sep='\t+', header=None)

and then write the DataFrame to a file using

Code:
df.to_csv(outfilename, header=None)

.

Here’s an example input file

Code:
'my_file.tsv'

Here’s an example of some code to convert the tab-delimited file to the CSV file:

Code:
import pandas as pd # Read space-delimited file
df = pd.read_csv('my_file.tsv', sep='\t+', header=None) # Write DataFrame to file
df.to_csv('my_file.csv', header=None)

Output file

Code:
'my_file.csv'

You can also use the simpler

Code:
sep='\t'

if you are sure that only a single tabular character separates two column values.

If you have any doubts, feel free to dive into our related tutorials:

Summary

We examined three great ways to convert a space-delimited to a comma-separated CSV file:

Thanks for taking the time to read this article, my friend!

Regex Humor

[Image: image-133.png]

[i]Wait, forgot to escape a space. Wheeeeee[taptaptap]eeeeee. (source)[/i]