I have a txt file that has the following format
a 1 blah b 2 blah,inc c 3 foo,inc i want to read it into a df using read_csv() but the commas are giving me an error and I don't want to skip with error_bad_lines=False.
How do I read it into a df ONE column per line? Or should I use another method?
I think you need change default separator , to s\+ for white-space sep:
import pandas as pd from pandas.compat import StringIO temp=u""" a 1 blah b 2 blah,inc c 3 foo,inc""" #after testing replace 'StringIO(temp)' to 'filename.csv' df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(temp), sep='\s+', header=None, names=['a','b','c']) print (df) a b c 0 a 1 blah 1 b 2 blah,inc 2 c 3 foo,inc For one column use some separator which is NOT in data like | or ¥:
temp=u""" a 1 blah b 2 blah,inc c 3 foo,inc""" #after testing replace 'StringIO(temp)' to 'filename.csv' df = pd.read_csv(StringIO(temp), sep='|', header=None, names=['a']) print (df) a 0 a 1 blah 1 b 2 blah,inc 2 c 3 foo,inc Another solution with read_fwf:
df = pd.read_fwf(StringIO(temp), header=None, colspecs=[(0, 100)]) print (df) 0 0 a 1 blah 1 b 2 blah,inc 2 c 3 foo,inc I think that pd.read_csv(delim_whitespace=True), should do the trick.
sep='\s+'or parameterdelim_whitespace=True