[Python-ideas] csv.DictReader could handle headers more intelligently.

Shane Green shane at umbrellacode.com
Tue Jan 29 14:08:25 CET 2013


Let's remove the assumptions about their information by retaining all of it, and make an assumption that everyone is capable of dealing with lists. 





Shane Green 
www.umbrellacode.com
408-692-4666 | shane at umbrellacode.com

On Jan 29, 2013, at 4:35 AM, Mark Hackett <mark.hackett at metoffice.gov.uk> wrote:

> On Tuesday 29 Jan 2013, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> If it dropped the columns and shouldn't have, then the results will be
>>> seen to be wrong anyway, so there's not a huge amount of need for this.
>> 
>> You cannot assume that the caller knows that there are duplicated column
>> names
>> 
> 
> You cannot assume they wanted them as a list.
> 
> You cannot assume that duplicate replacement is what they want.
> 
> If someone is using a csv file with header names they have never read, how are 
> they going to use the data? They won't even know the name to access the value 
> in the dictionary! So I discard the claim that the caller may not know the 
> column names are duplicated. They have to know what the headers are to use 
> DictReader.
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