Python csv writer : "Unknown Dialect" Error

Question

I have a very large string in the CSV format that will be written to a CSV file. I try to write it to CSV using the simplest if the python script ``` results=""" "2013-12-03 23:59:52","/core/log","79.223.39.000","logging-4.0",iPad,Unknown,"1.0.1.59-266060",NA,NA,NA,NA,3,"1385593191.865",true,ERROR,"app_error","iPad/Unknown/webkit/537.51.1",NA,"Does+not",false "2013-12-03 23:58:41","/core/log","217.7.59.000","logging-4.0",Win32,Unknown,"1.0.1.59-266060",NA,NA,NA,NA,4,"1385593120.68",true,ERROR,"app_error","Win32/Unknown/msie/9.0",NA,"Does+not,false "2013-12-03 23:58:19","/core/client_log","79.240.195.000","logging-4.0",Win32,"5.1","1.0.1.59-266060",NA,NA,NA,NA,6,"1385593099.001",true,ERROR,"app_error","Win32/5.1/mozilla/25.0",NA,"Could+not:+{"url":"/all.json?status=ongoing,scheduled,conflict","code":0,"data":"","success":false,"error":true,"cached":false,"jqXhr":{"readyState":0,"responseText":"","status":0,"statusText":"error"}}",false""" resultArray = results.split('
') with open(csv…

Accepted Answer

You need to specify the format of your string:

```
with open(csvfile, 'wb') as f:
    writer = csv.writer(f, delimiter=',', quotechar="'", quoting=csv.QUOTE_ALL)
```

You might also want to re-visit your writing loop; the way you have it written you will get one column in your file, and each row will be one character from the results string.

To really exploit the module, try this:

```
import csv

lines = ["'A','bunch+of','multiline','CSV,LIKE,STRING'"]

reader = csv.reader(lines, quotechar="'")

with open('out.csv', 'wb') as f:
   writer = csv.writer(f)
   writer.writerows(list(reader))
```

`out.csv` will have:

```
A,bunch+of,multiline,"CSV,LIKE,STRING"
```

If you want to quote all the column values, then add `quoting=csv.QUOTE_ALL` to the writer object; then you file will have:

```
"A","bunch+of","multiline","CSV,LIKE,STRING"
```

To change the quotes to `'`, add `quotechar="'"` to the writer object.

Python csv writer : "Unknown Dialect" Error

Solution

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