csv and mixed lists of unicode and numbers

[Sibylle Koczian]

Terry Reedy schrieb:

> In Python 3, a file opened in 'b' mode is for reading and writing bytes 
> with no encoding/decoding. I believe cvs works with files in text mode 
> as it returns and expects strings/text for reading and writing. Perhaps 
> the cvs doc should say must not be opened in 'b' mode. Not sure.
> 

I think that might really be better, because for version 2.6 they 
explicitly stated 'b' mode was necessary. The results I couldn't 
understand, even after reading the documentation for open():

 >>> import csv
 >>> acsv = open(r"d:\home\sibylle\temp\tmp.csv", "wb")
 >>> row = [b"abc", b"def", b"ghi"]
 >>> wtr = csv.writer(acsv)
 >>> wtr.writerow(row)
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<pyshell#22>", line 1, in <module>
     wtr.writerow(row)
TypeError: must be bytes or buffer, not str

Same error message with row = [5].

But I think I understand it now: the cvs.writer takes mixed lists of 
text and numbers - that's exactly why I like to use it - so it has to 
convert them before writing. And it converts into text - even bytes for 
a file opened in 'b' mode. Right?

Thank you, everybody, for explaining.

Sibylle