CSV Unicode reader with dual support for Python 2.6+ & 3.x

csv_unicode_reader_py2n3.py

import csv
import sys
from codecs import iterencode, iterdecode
from io import open

PY2 = sys.version_info.major < 3


def csv_file(filename, dialect=csv.excel, encoding=None, **kwds):
    """
    :yields: CSV rows as a list of Unicode column values
    :raises: IOError, OSError, csv.Error,
             UnicodeEncodeError, UnicodeDecodeError
    """
    with open(filename, newline='', encoding=encoding) as file_:
        csvfile = iterencode(file_, 'utf-8') if PY2 else file_
        csvreader = csv.reader(csvfile, dialect=dialect, **kwds)
        if PY2:
            csvreader = (list(iterdecode(i, 'utf-8')) for i in csvreader)
        for row in csvreader:
            yield row