Script that reads a csv file and serializes it into a list of dictionaries {column: value} The dicts can then be used for counting or to create other stats.

inspectCSV.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# encoding: utf-8
"""
csvreader.py

2013-08-27

Script that reads a csv file and serializes it into a list of dictionaries {column: value}
The dicts can then be used for counting or to create other stats. 

Note: spaces in file path should be represented simply as spaces (no escapes)

How: substitute the path of **filename** and run the script.
 
"""



import csv

filename = "test.csv"

f = open(filename, 'rU') # rU: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/python/dev/723649

bag = []

try:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    for row in reader:
        bag.append(row)
finally:
    f.close()
  
	
print "There are %d statements" % len(bag)

keys = bag[0].keys()

print "There are %d keys: %s" % (len(keys), ", ".join(["|"+x+"|" for x in keys]))


def getTotUniqueEl(bag, key):
	exit = []
	for x in bag:
		if x[key] not in exit:
			exit += [x[key]]
	return sorted(exit)


for x in keys:
	els = getTotUniqueEl(bag, x)
	print "*" * 10
	print "The key |%s| has %d unique elements" % (x, len(els))
	print els