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<title>12.20.2 Dialects and Formatting Parameters
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<H2><A NAME=
"SECTION00142020000000000000000"></A><A NAME=
"csv-fmt-params"></A>
12.20.2 Dialects and Formatting Parameters
To make it easier to specify the format of input and output records,
specific formatting parameters are grouped together into dialects. A
dialect is a subclass of the
<tt class=
"class">Dialect
</tt> class having a set of specific
methods and a single
<tt class=
"method">validate()
</tt> method. When creating
<tt class=
"class">reader
</tt>
or
<tt class=
"class">writer
</tt> objects, the programmer can specify a string or a subclass
of the
<tt class=
"class">Dialect
</tt> class as the dialect parameter. In addition to, or
instead of, the
<var>dialect
</var> parameter, the programmer can also specify
individual formatting parameters, which have the same names as the
attributes defined below for the
<tt class=
"class">Dialect
</tt> class.
Dialects support the following attributes:
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-
4230' xml:id='l2h-
4230'
class=
"member">delimiter
</tt></b></dt>
A one-character string used to separate fields. It defaults to
<code>','
</code>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-
4231' xml:id='l2h-
4231'
class=
"member">doublequote
</tt></b></dt>
Controls how instances of
<var>quotechar
</var> appearing inside a field should be
themselves be quoted. When
<tt class=
"constant">True
</tt>, the character is doubled.
When
<tt class=
"constant">False
</tt>, the
<var>escapechar
</var> must be a one-character string
which is used as a prefix to the
<var>quotechar
</var>. It defaults to
<tt class=
"constant">True
</tt>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-
4232' xml:id='l2h-
4232'
class=
"member">escapechar
</tt></b></dt>
A one-character string used to escape the
<var>delimiter
</var> if
<var>quoting
</var>
is set to
<tt class=
"constant">QUOTE_NONE
</tt>. It defaults to
<tt class=
"constant">None
</tt>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-
4233' xml:id='l2h-
4233'
class=
"member">lineterminator
</tt></b></dt>
The string used to terminate lines in the CSV file. It defaults to
<code>'
\r
\n'
</code>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-
4234' xml:id='l2h-
4234'
class=
"member">quotechar
</tt></b></dt>
A one-character string used to quote elements containing the
<var>delimiter
</var>
or which start with the
<var>quotechar
</var>. It defaults to
<code>'
"'</code>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-4235' xml:id='l2h-4235' class="member
">quoting</tt></b></dt>
Controls when quotes should be generated by the writer. It can take on any
of the <tt class="constant
">QUOTE_*</tt> constants (see section <A href="csv-contents.html#csv-contents
">12.20.1</A>)
and defaults to <tt class="constant
">QUOTE_MINIMAL</tt>.
<dl><dt><b><tt id='l2h-4236' xml:id='l2h-4236' class="member
">skipinitialspace</tt></b></dt>
When <tt class="constant
">True</tt>, whitespace immediately following the <var>delimiter</var>
is ignored. The default is <tt class="constant
">False</tt>.
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<span class="release-info
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