Python3: writing csv files

Question

I'm trying to use Python 3.2 on a Windows computer to write a simple CSV file, however I'm having no luck. From the csv module documentation for Python 3.2:

>>> import csv >>> spamWriter = csv.writer(open('eggs.csv', 'w'), delimiter=' ', ...                         quotechar='|', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL) >>> spamWriter.writerow(['Spam'] * 5 + ['Baked Beans']) >>> spamWriter.writerow(['Spam', 'Lovely Spam', 'Wonderful Spam']) 

produces a file with each line terminated by the byte sequence \r\r\n, so it looks like each line has an extra empty line when you open it with, e.g., MS Excel. This is not a "CSV file".

Note, if I try the same example for Python 2.7 in Python 3.2 (where the big difference is 'w' vs 'wb' for the file mode), I get an error when I try spamWriter.writerow:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface

How do I write a simple CSV file from Python 3.2 on a Windows computer?

Answer 1

Documentation says that you should use open('eggs.csv', 'w', newline='')

http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/csv.html#id2

Answer 2

This will work on both Python 2 and Python 3:

if sys.version_info >= (3,0,0):     f = open(filename, 'w', newline='') else:     f = open(filename, 'wb')