Python parse csv file - replace commas with colons
Question: I suspect this is a common problem, but I counldn't seem to locate the answer.
I am trying to remove all commas from a csv file and replace them with colons.
I would normally use sed or vi for this, but I need to use a purely python
implementation. Here is what I have come up with so far:

    
    
    import csv
    
    with open("temp.csv", mode="rU") as infile:
        reader = csv.reader(infile, dialect="excel")    
        with open("temp2.txt", mode="w") as outfile:
            writer = csv.writer(outfile)
            for rows in reader:
                for parsed_item in rows:
                    parsed_item = rows.replace(',', ':') # I can't do this with a list!
                    writer.writerow(parsed_item)
    

Can anyone help me out with how to do this? Thanks in advance for your help.


Answer: The answer is easier than you think. You just need to set the delimiter for
`csv.writer`:

    
    
    import csv
    
    with open("temp.csv", mode="rU") as infile:
        reader = csv.reader(infile, dialect="excel")    
        with open("temp2.txt", mode="w") as outfile:
            writer = csv.writer(outfile, delimiter=':')
            writer.writerows(rows)
    

You're line trying to replace `,` with `:` wasn't going to do anything because
the row had already been processed by `csv.reader`.

