How to check if a CSV has a header using Python?

Question

I have a CSV file and I want to check if the first row has only strings in it (ie a header). I'm trying to avoid using any extras like pandas etc. I'm thinking I'll use an if statement like if row[0] is a string print this is a CSV but I don't really know how to do that :-S any suggestions?

Answer 1

For files that are not necessarily in '.csv' format, this is very useful:

built-in function in Python to check Header in a Text file

    def check_header(filename):
        with open(filename) as f:
            first = f.read(1)
        return first not in '.-0123456789'

Answer by: https://stackoverflow.com/users/908494/abarnert

Post link: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15671103/7763184

Answer 2

Python has a built in CSV module that could help. E.g.

import csv
with open('example.csv', 'rb') as csvfile:
    sniffer = csv.Sniffer()
    has_header = sniffer.has_header(csvfile.read(2048))
    csvfile.seek(0)
    # ...

Answer 3

I'd do something like this:

is_header = not any(cell.isdigit() for cell in csv_table[0])

Given a CSV table csv_table, grab the top (zeroth) row. Iterate through the cells and check if they contain any pure digit strings. If so, it's not a header. Negate that with a not in front of the whole expression.

Results:

In [1]: not any(cell.isdigit() for cell in ['2','1'])
Out[1]: False

In [2]: not any(cell.isdigit() for cell in ['2','gravy'])
Out[2]: False

In [3]: not any(cell.isdigit() for cell in ['gravy','gravy'])
Out[3]: True