Get rid of fluff on fields in a CSV

strip.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""
Get rid of white space and periods on the old file, and ensure the new one uses the same CSV quoting conventions, so we can run a diff without being distracted those differences.
"""
import csv


directories = ["luke", "sunlight"]
base = "2011Q3-summary"

for directory in directories:

    fin = csv.reader(open('%s/%s.csv' % (directory, base),'r'))
    fout = csv.writer(open('%s/%s-stripped.csv' % (directory, base),'w'))

    for line in fin:
        newline = []
        for field in line:
            newline.append( field.strip().strip('.').strip() )
        fout.writerow(newline)


"""
run this:
diff --suppress-common-lines -y -W 1500 old-detail-stripped.csv new-detail-stripped.csv > diff.txt

and you should see differences only in lines where the RECIP (orig) started with DO, like DOUG--the old script erroneously replaced those with the name above it! 

There are also some 'government contributions' lines that will show up in the diff. They were spaced wrong before, and now they are displaying correctly.
"""