Looping through File Question

[John Machin]

On Sep 5, 10:26 pm, planetmatt <planetm... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5 Sep, 12:34, John Machin <sjmac... at lexicon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 5, 8:58 pm, planetmatt <planetm... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I am a Python beginner.  I am trying to loop through a CSV file which
> > > I can do.  What I want to change though is for the loop to start at
> > > row 2 in the file thus excluding column headers.
>
> > > At present I am using this statement to initiate a loop though the
> > > records:
>
> > > for line in f.readlines():
>
> > > How do I start this at row 2?
>
> > The quick answer to your literal question is:
> >   for line in f.readlines()[1:]:
> > or, with extreme loss of elegance, this:
> >   for lino, line in enumerate(f.readlines()):
> >       if not lino:
> >           continue
>
> > But readline and readlines are old hat, and you wouldn't want to read
> > a file of a few million lines into a big list, so a better answer is:
>
> >     _unused = f.next()
> >     for line in f:
>
> > But you did say you were reading a CSV file, and you don't really want
> > to do your own CSV parsing, even if you think you know how to get it
> > right, so best is:
>
> >     import csv
> >     rdr = csv.reader(f)
> >     heading_row = rdr.next()
> >     for data_row in rdr:
>
> > HTH,
> > John
>
> Thanks so much for the quick response.  All working now.
>
> I had looked at the CSV module but when I ran into another problem of
> trying to loop through all columns, I was given a solution in another
> forum which used the readlines() method.

Antique advice which still left you doing the CSV parsing :-)

>
> I have looked at the CSV documentation but didn't see any mention of
> heading_row or data_row.

Ummm ... 'heading_row' and 'data_row' are identifiers of the kind that
you or I would need to make up in any language; why did you expect to
find them in the documentation?

> Is there a definitive Python documentation
> site with code examples like MS's MSDN?

The definitive Python documentation site is (I suppose) http://www.python.org/doc/

I don't know what "code examples like MS's MSDN" means. I avoid MSDN
like I'd avoid a nurse carrying a bottle of Dettol and a wire
brush :-)

Here's an example of sucking your data into a list of lists and
accessing it columnwise:

rdr = csv.reader(f)
whatever_you_want_to_call_the_heading_row = rdr.next()
data = list(rdr)
sum_col_5 = sum(float(row[5]) for row in data)
print "The value in row 3, column 4 is", data[3][4]

HTH,
John