simplistic conversion of DBF to CSV. See docstring in code for usage

dbf2csv.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""dbf2csv.py
   DRAFT 4/14/2015 PS Bills, ICER
   example python code to read DBF and write to standard CSV.  
   Requires dbfread python package installed ( http://dbfread.readthedocs.org )
   and Python 2.7 or greater
   
   Example usage :   
        python dbconvert.py MYFILE.DBF 
           will write the DBF contents to the screen
   OR
        python dbconvert.py -o mynewfile.csv MYFILE.DBF
            will write to the file mynewfile.csv (erasing the contents first)
   OR
       python dbconvert.py -o mynewfile.csv -n MYFILE.DBF  
           will write the dbf to mynwefile.csv but without the field name header row
   """
import sys,csv, os 
import argparse
from dbfread import DBF

def dbf2csv(dbfFilePath,csvFilePath=None,noheader=False):
    """given a dbf Filename or Path, and an optional filename for csv output
       write contents of dbf to CSV format
       If not outputfilename is given, write to stdout (the screen)
       csvFilePath must be a single file name (not wildcard)
     """
    
    table = DBF(dbfFilePath)
    
    if(csvFilePath==None):
        csvfile = sys.stdout
    else:
        csvfile = open(csvFilePath, 'w')
        
    writer =  csv.writer(csvfile) # csv.writer(csvfile)

    if noheader != True:
        # double negative
        # noheader = true, don't write fieldnames, not noheader -> write the fieldnames
        writer.writerow(table.field_names)
        
    for record in table:
        writer.writerow(list(record.values()))

    if csvfile != sys.stdout:
        csvfile.close();

def valid_file(filepath):
    if not os.path.exists(filepath):
        msg = "can't find file %s" % filepath
        raise argparse.ArgumentTypeError(msg)
    return filepath


if __name__ == '__main__':
    
    ## test for command line argument filenames and send them to the dbf2csv function
    
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    
    parser.add_argument('dbfFile',
        help='dbf file path to convert',
        type=valid_file )

    parser.add_argument('--output', '-o',
        help='output file for csv',
        required=False )
    
    parser.add_argument('--noheader', '-n',
        action='store_true',
        help='do not make first line of csv the column headings' )
    
    args = parser.parse_args()
    
    # if len(sys.argv) < 3:
    #     outputFile = None
    # else:
    #     outputFile = sys.argv[2]
        
    dbf2csv(args.dbfFile, args.output,  args.noheader)