example from Lynn Root's workshop.

pyladies_import_csv_long_way

import csv

MY_FILE = "../data/sample_sfpd_incident_all.csv"
#../ means go up one directory
#all caps means a constant variable

def parse(raw_file, delimiter):
        """ csv file -> JSON-like object"""


        # open csv file
        opened_file = open(raw_file) #open is a built-in function in python

        # read the csv data
        csv_data = csv.reader(opened_file, delimiter=delimiter) #using the csv module we imported

        # parse data into python data type
        parsed_data = [] #create an empty list (actually will be a dictionary, see below)

        fields = csv_data.next()  # reads the first line to get the header row

        #iterate over the rest of the rows

        for row in csv_data:
                parsed_data.append(dict(zip(fields, row)))   #makes pairs of field:row --> into a dictionary

        # close the csv file

        opened_file.close()  #just to be safe

        # return the parsed data

        return parsed_data

def main():
        """boilerplate useful if you ever want to turn this into a library"""
        new_data = parse(MY_FILE, ",")

        print new_data

if __name__== "__main__":
        main()
                        #executes only when you explicitly run this file