Delete or remove last column in CSV file using Python

Question

I have a CSV file with 5 columns. Using Python, how can I delete the last column (header5 in the example)? Is there an easy way I\'m missing, or do I have to loop through al

Answer 1

Use the csv module. When writing out a row, use row[:-1] to chop off the last item:

import csv

with open(filename,"r") as fin:
    with open(outname,"w") as fout:
        writer=csv.writer(fout)
        for row in csv.reader(fin):
            writer.writerow(row[:-1])

Answer 2

Even if you don't use CSV module, the logical and sane way is to read the file row by row, split them on comma, and print out item 1 through 4 with a join. eg

for line in open("file"):
    print ','.join( line.split(",")[:-1] )

Or just by simple string indexing

for line in open("file"):
    print line[ : line.rindex(",") ]