Python read csv - BOM embedded into the first key

Question

I'm using Python 2.7.12. With this code snippet I'm saving a utf-8 csv file. I wrote the BOM (byte order mark) at the beginning of the file. ``` import codecs import csv outputFile = open("test.csv", "wb") outputFile.write(codecs.BOM_UTF8) fieldnames = ["a", "b"] writer = csv.DictWriter(outputFile, fieldnames, delimiter=";") writer.writeheader() row = dict([]) for i in range(10): row["a"] = str(i).encode("utf-8") row["b"] = str(i*2).encode("utf-8") writer.writerow(row) outputFile.close() ``` I want to load that csv file: ``` import codecs import csv inputFile = open("test.csv", "rb") reader = csv.DictReader(inputFile, delimiter=";") for row in reader: print row["a"] inputFile.close() ``` The above code is going to fail: `KeyError: 'a'` If I print the row keys this is how they look: `[u'\ufeffa', u'b']`. The BOM has been embedded into the key `a`. What am I doing wrong?

Accepted Answer

You have to tell open that this is UTF-8 with BOM. I know that works with io.open:

```
import io

.
.
.
inputFile = io.open("test.csv", "r", encoding='utf-8-sig')
.
.
.
```

And you have to open the file in text mode, "r" instead of "rb".

Python read csv - BOM embedded into the first key

Solution

Problem