How do I merge two CSV files based on field and keep same number of attributes on each record?

Question

I am attempting to merge two CSV files based on a specific field in each file.

file1.csv

id,attr1,attr2,attr3
1,True,7,\"Purple\"
2,Fal         


        

Answer 1

Use dict of dict then update it. Like this:

import csv
from collections import OrderedDict

with open('file2.csv','r') as f2:
    reader = csv.reader(f2)
    lines2 = list(reader)

with open('file1.csv','r') as f1:
    reader = csv.reader(f1)
    lines1 = list(reader)

dict1 = {row[0]: dict(zip(lines1[0][1:], row[1:])) for row in lines1[1:]}
dict2 = {row[0]: dict(zip(lines2[0][1:], row[1:])) for row in lines2[1:]}

#merge
updatedDict = OrderedDict()
mergedAttrs = OrderedDict.fromkeys(lines1[0][1:] + lines2[0][1:], "?")
for id, attrs in dict1.iteritems():
    d = mergedAttrs.copy()
    d.update(attrs)
    updatedDict[id] = d

for id, attrs in dict2.iteritems():
    updatedDict[id].update(attrs)

#out
with open('merged.csv', 'wb') as f:
    w = csv.writer(f)
    for id, rest in sorted(updatedDict.iteritems()):
        w.writerow([id] + rest.values())