How to parse tsv file with python?

Question

I have a tsv file which includes some newline data.

111 222 333 "aaa"
444 555 666 "bb
b"

Here b on the third line is a newline character of bb on the second line, so they are one data:

The fourth value of first line:

aaa

The fourth value of second line:

bb
b

If I use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V paste to a excel file, it works well. But if I want to import the file using python, how to parse?

I have tried:

lines = [line.rstrip() for line in open(file.tsv)]
for i in range(len(lines)):
    value = re.split(r'\t', lines[i]))

But the result was not good:

I want:

Answer 1

Just use the csv module. It knows about all the possible corner cases in CSV files like new lines in quoted fields. And it can delimit on tabs.

with open("file.tsv") as fd:
    rd = csv.reader(fd, delimiter="\t", quotechar='"')
    for row in rd:
        print(row)

will correctly output:

['111', '222', '333', 'aaa']
['444', '555', '666', 'bb\nb']