csv.writer writing each character of word in separate column/cell

Objective: To extract the text from the anchor tag inside all lines in models and put it in a csv.

I'm trying this code:

with open('Sprint_data.csv', 'ab') as csvfile:
  spamwriter = csv.writer(csvfile)
  models = soup.find_all('li' , {"class" : "phoneListing"})

  for model in models:

      model_name = unicode(u' '.join(model.a.stripped_strings)).encode('utf8').strip()
      spamwriter.writerow(unicode(u' '.join(model.a.stripped_strings)).encode('utf8').strip())

It's working fine except each cell in the csv contains only one character.

Like this:

|  S  |  A  |   M  |   S  |   U   |  N  |   G   |

Instead of:

|SAMSUNG|

Of course I'm missing something. But what?

Solution 1:

.writerow() requires a sequence ('', (), []) and places each index in it's own column of the row, sequentially. If your desired string is not an item in a sequence, writerow() will iterate over each letter in your string and each will be written to your CSV in a separate cell.

after you import csv

If this is your list:

myList = ['Diamond', 'Sierra', 'Crystal', 'Bridget', 'Chastity', 'Jasmyn', 'Misty', 'Angel', 'Dakota', 'Asia', 'Desiree', 'Monique', 'Tatiana']


listFile = open('Names.csv', 'wb')
writer = csv.writer(listFile)
for item in myList:
    writer.writerow(item)

The above script will produce the following CSV: Names.csv

D,i,a,m,o,n,d
S,i,e,r,r,a
C,r,y,s,t,a,l
B,r,i,d,g,e,t
C,h,a,s,t,i,t,y
J,a,s,m,y,n
M,i,s,t,y
A,n,g,e,l
D,a,k,o,t,a
A,s,i,a
D,e,s,i,r,e,e
M,o,n,i,q,u,e
T,a,t,i,a,n,a

If you want each name in it's own cell, the solution is to simply place your string (item) in a sequence. Here I use square brackets []. :

listFile2 = open('Names2.csv', 'wb')
writer2 = csv.writer(listFile2)
for item in myList:
    writer2.writerow([item])

The script with .writerow([item]) produces the desired results: Names2.csv

Diamond
Sierra
Crystal
Bridget
Chastity
Jasmyn
Misty
Angel
Dakota
Asia
Desiree
Monique
Tatiana

Solution 2:

writerow accepts a sequence. You're giving it a single string, so it's treating that as a sequence, and strings act like sequences of characters.

What else do you want in this row? Nothing? If so, make it a list of one item:

spamwriter.writerow([u' '.join(model.a.stripped_strings).encode('utf8').strip()])

(By the way, the unicode() call is completely unnecessary since you're already joining with a unicode delimiter.)