Convert .csv file into .dbf using Python?

Question

How can I convert a .csv file into .dbf file using a python script? I found this piece of code online but I'm not certain how reliable it is. Are there any modules out there that have this functionality?

Answer 1

You won't find anything on the net that reads a CSV file and writes a DBF file such that you can just invoke it and supply 2 file-paths. For each DBF field you need to specify the type, size, and (if relevant) number of decimal places.

Some questions:

What software is going to consume the output DBF file?

There is no such thing as "the" (one and only) DBF file format. Do you need dBase III ? dBase 4? 7? Visual FoxPro? etc?

What is the maximum length of text field that you need to write? Do you have non-ASCII text?

Which version of Python?

If your requirements are minimal (dBase III format, no non-ASCII text, text <= 254 bytes long, Python 2.X), then the cookbook recipe that you quoted should do the job.

Answer 2

None that are well-polished, to my knowledge. I have had to work with xBase files many times over the years, and I keep finding myself writing code to do it when I have to do it. I have, somewhere in one of my backups, a pretty functional, pure-Python library to do it, but I don't know precisely where that is.

Fortunately, the xBase file format isn't all that complex. You can find the specification on the Internet, of course. At a glance the module that you linked to looks fine, but of course make copies of any data that you are working with before using it.

A solid, read/write, fully functional xBase library with all the bells and whistles is something that has been on my TODO list for a while... I might even get to it in what is left this year, if I'm lucky... (probably not, though, sadly).

Answer 3

I have created a python script here. It should be customizable for any csv layout. You do need to know your DBF data structure before this will be possible. This script requires two csv files, one for your DBF header setup and one for your body data. good luck.

https://github.com/mikebrennan/csv2dbf_python

Answer 4

Using the dbf package you can get a basic csv file with code similar to this:

import dbf
some_table = dbf.from_csv(csvfile='/path/to/file.csv', to_disk=True)

This will create table with the same name and either Character or Memo fields and field names of f0, f1, f2, etc.

For a different filename use the filenameparameter, and if you know your field names you can also use the field_names parameter.

some_table = dbf.from_csv(csvfile='data.csv', filename='mytable',
        field_names='name age birth'.split())

Rather basic documentation is available here.

Disclosure: I am the author of this package.

Answer 5

Use the csv library to read your data from the csv file. The third-party dbf library can write a dbf file for you.

Edit: Originally, I listed dbfpy, but the library above seems to be more actively updated.