Python
03 Sep 2026
10 min read
Read and Write CSV Reliably in Python
CSV looks simple because a small file may resemble plain text with commas between values. That mental model breaks as soon as a field itself contains a comma, quote, or newline. Consider one valid record: 42,"Nguyen, Mai","Line one Line two" Splitting this text on commas cannot recover the three fields correctly. The comma inside the name is data, and the newline inside the quoted field belongs to the same record.