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@blackfist
Created October 28, 2013 17:22
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How to use csv.DictReader even when you're dealing with shitty data and header row names are duplicated. First you have to make an array of unique header names and tell the DictReader to use that instead of the first row of the file.
anus = reader(open('bullshit_file.csv','rU'))
fieldnames = []
# Read the first row of the csv file and put all the values into a list. Duplicates will not be overwritten.
for headername in anus.next():
if headername not in fieldnames:
fieldnames.append(headername)
else:
fieldnames.append(headername + " Other")
# Now feed that list of unique header names into the DictReader along with the shitty file.
infile = csv.DictReader(open('bullshit_file','rU'),fieldnames=fieldnames)
@krmaxwell
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Do the names only recur one time each? Otherwise they will end up having the same issue n-1 times.

@blackfist
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I'm pretty sure they do. Not all names recur. Of the ones that do, a third occurrence of a name would become "name Other Other"

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