topic Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?) in Python Questions

Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

Mick — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:54:38 GMT

My company asks to convert txt files to .csv files. Could you advise how to write a Python script for ArcGIS?

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

DanPatterson — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:59:25 GMT

The bigger question is the *.txt files in comma separated values format?

Otherwise it would be a simple renaming operation.

And in any event, the filename extension doesn't need to be *.csv for it to be read as one, it is the contents that are important

A previous answer provides the solution, which just needs to be put within a loop

Solved: Using Python to split and rename file - Esri Community

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

Mick — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:59:06 GMT

There is no comma.

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

DanPatterson — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 11:00:56 GMT

Then a sample of the input would be needed, otherwise you have to read the file, parse it on spaces or tabs and reassemble

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

Mick — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 11:08:05 GMT

I have only two spaces between coordinates in my files. Can you recommend a code to replace two spaces for a comma in the script?

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

DanPatterson — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 11:49:19 GMT

I use numpy

fname = r"c:\temp\space.txt" a = np.loadtxt(fname, delimiter=" ") outname = fname[:-3] + "csv" np.savetxt(outname, a, fmt='%f', delimiter=", ")

a text file

1.0 2.0 3.0
4.0 5.0 6.0

as csv file

1.000000, 2.000000, 3.000000
4.000000, 5.000000, 6.000000

you can format as you see fit.

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

Mick — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 12:36:20 GMT

Thank you, can you recommend any extra options with arcpy?

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

JoeBorgione — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 16:36:54 GMT

You won't use arcpy as it is nothing more than a python module but you can use the re (regular expression) module to do it:

import re myFile = r'C:\temp\Coords.txt' with open(myFile,'r+') as f: text = f.read() text = re.sub(' ',',',text) f.seek(0) f.write(text) f.truncate() f.close()

Assuming you have the file C:\temp\Coords.txt that looks like this:

-111.45 40.57 -112.05 40.06

I stole this right from https://www.kite.com/python/answers/how-to-update-and-replace-text-in-a-file-in-python

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

JoshuaBixby — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 16:41:45 GMT

NumPy has been a standard package in Esri's Python deployment for years. If your Python deployment has ArcPy, it has NumPy installed too.

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

Mick — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 05:06:04 GMT

Can you recommend how to use not only one file to convert but a folder with one hundred files?

Re: Python questions (How covert txt files to .csv files?)

JoeBorgione — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 14:56:32 GMT

You'll want to get familiar with the os module in python, and especially the os.listdir() method. Once you get a list of the file names, you can iterate through that list and apply the code I provided above upon each iteration.

Finally you'll want to rename your .txt files to .csv files. You have a couple options here; you can follow the code above that edits the contents of the .txt files and then using the os module re-name them, or you edit those files and write the edits to a different file. This page is worthy of a bookmark for how to open, read, write, append etc files. You may want to copy a few of your files and work on them to iron out the kinks before you tackle all one hundred.

I've purposely left out specific code here, as well as provided a number of different online Python resources for you as I'm a firm believer in the 'Teach a man to fish' philosophy. And speaking of which, it's Saturday, and the temperatures are expected to be near 60 here in Utah, which means there is a good chance of a midge hatch on local rivers. I'm going to take advantage of that and pull my waders and tie on a Griffiths Gnat with some sort of Midge emerger as a dropper....