I'm working on Windows. I've a Python file to create a new CSV file and I view that using Notepad (even through Microsoft Excel).
import csv
data = [['fruit','quantity'], ['apple',5], ['banana',7],['mango',8]]
with open('d:\lineter.csv', 'w') as l:
w = csv.writer(l,delimiter='|', lineterminator='\r')
w.writerows(data)
The resulting file in Notepad:
fruit|quantityapple|5banana|7mango|8
Does the carriage return \r work or not? It works like lineterminator='' in Notepad. But in Excel, it works like '\n'.
The output doesn't seem to implement carriage return. When I use lineterminator as:
w = csv.writer(l, delimiter='|', lineterminator='*\r*\n')
The output in Notepad is:
fruit|quantity**
apple|5**
banana|7**
mango|8**
This is evident here too.
How does '\r' work in lineterminator in writer()?
Or is there another thing happening there?
The shorter answer:
When to use carriage return (CR, \r) vs. line feed (LF, \n) vs. both (CRLF, \r\n) to make a new line appear in a text editor on Windows, Mac, and Linux:
How does '\r' work in lineterminator in writer()??
It works fine in csv.writer(). This really isn't a Python, CSV, or writer problem. This is an operating system historical difference (actually, it's more accurate to state it is a program-specific difference) going back to the 1960s or so.
Or is there another thing happening there?
Yes, this is the one.
Your version of Notepad doesn't recognize a carriage return (\r) as a character used to display new lines, and hence won't display it as such in Notepad. Other text editors, such as Sublime Text 3, however probably would, even on Windows.
Up until about the year 2018 or so, Windows and Notepad required a carriage return + line feed (\r\n) together to display a new line. Contrast this to Mac and Linux, which require only \n.
The solution is to use \r\n for a new line on Windows, and \n alone for a new line on Mac or Linux. You can also try a different text editor, such as Sublime Text, when viewing or editing text files, or upgrade your version of Windows or Notepad, if possible, as somewhere around the year 2018 Windows Notepad started to accept \r alone as a valid old-Mac-style new line char.
(from the OP's comment under this answer):
Then why to give '\r\n'???
When a programmer writes a program, the programmer can make the program do whatever the programmer wants the program to do. When Windows programmers made Windows and Notepad they decided to make the program do nothing if it got a \r, nothing if it got a \n, and to do a new line if it got a \r\n together. It's that simple. The program is doing exactly what the programmers told it to do, because they decided that's how they wanted the program to work. So, if you want a new line in the older (pre-2018) version of Notepad in Windows, you must do what the programmers require you to do to get it. \r\n is it.
This goes back to the days of teletypewriters (read the "History" and "Representation" sections here), and this page about "teleprinters" / "teletypewriters" / "teletype or TTY machines" too:
A typewriter or electromechanical printer can print characters on paper, and execute operations such as move the carriage back to the left margin of the same line (carriage return), advance to the same column of the next line (line feed), and so on.
(source; emphasis added)
The mechanical carriage return button on a teletypewriter (\r now on a computer) meant: "return the carriage (print head) to the beginning of the line" (meaning: the far left side of the page), and the line feed mechanical mechanism on a teletypewriter (\n now on a computer) meant: "roll the paper up one line so we can now type onto the next line." Without the mechanical line feed (\n) action, the carriage return (\r) alone would move the mechanical print head to the far left of the page and cause you to type right back on top of the words you already typed! And without the carriage return mechanical action (\r on a computer), the line feed mechanical action (\n) alone would cause you to just type in the last column at the far right on each new line on the page, never able to return the print head to the left side of the page again! On an electro-mechanical teletypewriter, they both had to be used: the carriage return would bring the print head back to the left side of the page, and the line feed action would move the print head down to the next line. So, presumably, Windows programmers felt it was logical to keep that tradition alive, and they decided to require both a \r\n together to create a new line on a computer, since that's how it had to be done traditionally on an electro-mechanical teletypewriter.
Read below for details.
Details (the longer answer):
I have some ideas of what's going on, but let's take a look. I believe we have two questions to answer:
Is the \r actually being stored into the file?
Is Notepad actually showing the \r, and if not, why not?
So, for #1. Let's test it on Linux Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa):
This program:
#!/usr/bin/python3
import csv
data = [['fruit','quantity'], ['apple',5], ['banana',7],['mango',8]]
with open('d:\lineter.csv','w') as l:
w = csv.writer(l, delimiter='|', lineterminator='\r')
w.writerows(data)
produces this file: d:\lineter.csv. If I open it in the Sublime Text 3 text editor I see:
fruit|quantity
apple|5
banana|7
mango|8
So far so good. Let's look at the characters with hexdump at the command line:
hexdump -c shows the \r characters, sure enough!
$ hexdump -c d\:\\lineter.csv
0000000 f r u i t | q u a n t i t y \r a
0000010 p p l e | 5 \r b a n a n a | 7 \r
0000020 m a n g o | 8 \r
0000028
You can also use hexdump -C to show the characters in hexadecimal instead, and again, I see the \r in the file as a hex 0d char, which is correct.
Ok, so I boot up Windows 10 Professional in my VirtualBox virtual machine in Linux, and open the same file in Notepad, and....it works too! See screenshot:
But, notice the part I circled which says "Macintosh (CR)". I'm running the latest version of Windows 10 Professional. I'm betting you're using an old version of Notepad which doesn't have this fix, and yours won't say that here. This is because for 33 years Notepad didn't handle Carriage Return, or \r, as a valid line-ending, so it wouldn't display it as such. See here: Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings.
Due to historical differences dating back to teletypewriters and Morse code (read the "History" and "Representation" sections here), different systems decided to make their text editors treat line endings in different ways. From the article just above (emphasis added):
Notepad previously recognized only the Windows End of Line (EOL) characters, specifically Carriage Return (CR, \r, 0x0d) and Line Feed (LF, \n, 0x0a) together.
For old-school Mac OS, the EOL character is just Carriage Return (CR, \r, 0x0d) and for Linux/Unix it's just Line Feed (LF, \n, 0x0a). Modern macOS, since Mac OS X, follows the Unix convention.
So, what we have here is the following displayed as a newline in a text editor:
Old-school Mac: CR (\r) only
Windows Notepad up until ~2018: CR & LF together (\r\n)
Linux: LF (\n) only
Modern Mac: LF (\n) only
Modern Windows Notepad (year ~2018 and later): any of the scenarios above.
So, for Windows, just stick to always using \r\n for a newline, and for Mac or Linux, just stick to always using \n for a newline, unless you're trying to guarantee old-school (i.e., pre-2019 :)) Windows compatibility of your files, in which case you should use \r\n for newlines as well.
Note, for Sublime Text 3, I just searched the preferences in Preferences → Settings and found this setting:
// Determines what character(s) are used to terminate each line in new files.
// Valid values are 'system' (whatever the OS uses), 'windows' (CRLF) and
// 'unix' (LF only).
"default_line_ending": "system",
So, to use the convention for whatever OS you're running Sublime Text on, the default is "system". To force 'windows' (CRLF) line endings when editing and saving files in Sublime Text, however, use this:
"default_line_ending": "windows",
And to force Unix (Mac and Linux) LF-only line ending settings, use this:
"default_line_ending": "unix",
In the Notepad editor, I can find no such settings to configure. It is a simple editor, catering for 33 years to Windows line endings only.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#History
Is a new line = \n OR \r\n?
Why does Windows use CR LF?
[I still need to read & study] Unix & Linux: Why does Linux use LF as the newline character?
[I still need to read & study] Retrocomputing: Why is Windows using CR+LF and Unix just LF when Unix is the older system?
I've encountered some very strange behavior on Windows XP. I'm using Python to execute a command to open a browser using a shortcut file in a folder on the desktop.
The following line is what I expect to do the job:
os.system(r'"C:\Documents and Settings\you\Desktop\Chrome Browsers\Google Chrome 46.lnk" "chrome.google.com/webstore"')
It's a raw string literal so all the backslashes are actual backslashes. I can tell that is true by putting echo at the start of that command. (i.e. os.system('echo "C:\Documents and Settings\blah\blah chrome.google.com/webstore"') )
Using echo returns the following:
"C:\Documents and Settings\you\Desktop\Chrome Browsers\Google Chrome 46.lnk" "chrome.google.com/webstore"
That looks like a fine Windows command, yes? Well it is. Copying and pasting that into a command prompt runs fine. But the actual command (without echo) fails. The error states that
'C:\Documents' is not recognized as an internal or external command.
Which is a pretty standard error for an unquoted path. But wait, the command we echoed was good, so it should run, right? I guess not...
Through trial and error I was able to find something that worked. The following line is the only way I've been able to get the browser to launch:
os.system('""C:\Documents and Settings\you\Desktop\Chrome Browsers\Google Chrome 46.lnk" chrome.google.com/webstore"')
That's right, apparently the solution is to add an extra double quote at the beginning of the command and take out the double quote before the second argument.
To me that looks like empty string, unquoted path with unescaped spaces, then a quoted url that starts with a space.
If I echo that command it returns exactly what you would expect:
""C:\Documents and Settings\you\Desktop\Chrome Browsers\Google Chrome 46.lnk" chrome.google.com/webstore"
But it works! Pasting that echo result into the command line fails with the "C:\Documents not recognized" error from before, but the Python command opens the browser to the correct page anyway.
Could someone please explain what is happening here? I am really confused by this behavior because it is not at all what I expect.
P.S. This behavior is entirely different on every Windows OS past XP. For Vista and newer the command is:
os.system(r'"C:\Users\you\Desktop\Chrome Browsers\Google Chrome\Google Chrome 46.lnk" "chrome.google.com/webstore"')
Because there are " " spaces in your paths. C:\Documents and Settings\.. see the 2 spaces? otherwise it will pick up C:\Documents as a binary and and as the first param, Settings\.. as the other param.. and so on. This way youre saying: this whole thing is a binary C:\Documents and Settings\.. and chrome.google.com/webstore is my argument.
Make sense?
I am using Spyder IDE to develop code and the IDE currently has default end-of-line character set to be CRLF. I would like to use '\n' instead because all my existing source code uses '\n' and so I don't want to have a bunch of new files that use a different end-of-line character.
Is there a way to specify the default end-of-line character in Spyder IDE? If yes, how?
(Spyder maintainer here) To configure the end of line characters you want to use, you need to go to the menu
Tools > Preferences > Editor > Advanced settings
then to the section End of line characters and select the ones that Spyder will use on save.
I just started exploring Spyder 4.1.5 (unfortunately could not get 5.1.5 installed), and found this for EOL settings:
'Tools' > 'Preferences' > choose 'Editor' in the list on the left > 'Advanced setting' tab on the right > at the bottom is the 'End-of-line characters' section.
To convert existing CRLF to LF, select the LF option in the dropdown, then for each file you want to convert, make any edit and save the file and voila. (I think you have to do the edit+save step file-by-file.)
As Carlos Cordoba wrote, Spyder does not allow setting the line ending but it does respect the line endings of a file.
If a file has LF line endings and you hit enter, it wont add CRLF even if you are on windows.
My solution is to change the line endings of a new file with notepad++ (edit-> EOL conversion)
For many existing files you can use the replace function, explained here
I have python code that calls Windows software (collada refinery) through command line. It works fine in the UK but does not work on a machine in China/Taiwan. When the filename/filepath contains any Chinese characters this refinery fails to find or open file.
Python code:
# somewhere in the code
subprocess.popen("refinery -i <inputfile.dae> -o <outfile.dae> -x polylists2triangles", shell=True).wait())
When this inputfile.dae (I have to give just the name and then refinery adds current directory absolute path to it and makes full absolute path of this input file name> weird but that's not the question) is read by refinery it throws error or not able to open the file.
I want to add checking in python so that if input file name/path contains Chinese or non-English characters then, it throws user defined exception.
Try to define the file encoding after the first interpreter line
# _*_ coding=utf-8 _*_
and save the file as utf-8 also
Hello I would like that when I am in the python
console tabbing will give me four spaces. Any ideas?
Download and install AutoHotkey
Write this script:
SetTitleMatchMode 2
#IfWinActive python
tab::
Send, {SPACE}
Send, {SPACE}
Send, {SPACE}
Send, {SPACE}
Save it as tab-to-space.ahk, and doubleclick on the file.
Note: you might have to captalize "Python" to match your window tite. Or you can have "yhton" and it will match Jython too.