Python - CSV module to write certain rows to new file

Question

I've got a small issue. I'm trying to create a script that takes large (~2gb) csv files (id, integer, integer), sorts them by the first integer and then writes, to a new file, the top x rows (as defined by the user).

I'm able to get the sort function to work as required and extracting the top X rows works also but I can't work out how to get this output to write to a csv. To check it has been working, I have included a print function and it all seems to work out fine.

I feel like I'm missing a really basic concept in the csv module but I can't work out what it is!

import csv
import operator

def csv_to_list(csv_file, delimiter=','):

    with open(csv_file, 'r') as csv_con:
        reader = csv.reader(csv_con, delimiter=delimiter)
        return list(reader)

def sort_by_column(csv_cont, col, reverse=True):

    header = csv_cont[1]
    body = csv_cont[1:]
    if isinstance(col, str):  
        col_index = header.index(col)
    else:
        col_index = col
    body = sorted(body, 
           key=operator.itemgetter(col_index), 
           reverse=reverse)
    #body.insert(0, header)
    return body

def print_csv(csv_content):
    for row in csv_content:
        row = [str(e) for e in row]
        print('\t'.join(row))

def write_csv(dest, csv_cont):
    with open(dest, 'w') as out_file:
        writer = csv.writer(out_file, delimiter=',')
        for row in csv_cont:
            writer.writerow(row)

csv_cont = csv_to_list(input_hep.csv)
row_count = sum(1 for row in csv_cont)
num_rows = int(input("Skim size?: "))
output_file = input("Output: ")

csv_sorted = sort_by_column(csv_cont, 1)
for row in range(num_rows):
    print(csv_sorted[row])

My main idea was to try:

with open(output_file+'.csv','w') as f:
    writer = csv.writer(f, delimiter =',')
    for row in range(num_rows):
        writer.writerow(row)

But then I get a "_csv.Error: iterable expected, not int" error. I get why but I'm struggling to understand how I can get the output (as it is printed) to write within a csv. Any tips or pointers would be appreciated.

Solution

If your array is a multidimensional list, you can use writerows directly without iterating

with open(output_file+'.csv','w') as f:
    writer = csv.writer(f, delimiter =',')
    writer.writerows(sorted_csv_cont)

Assuming your list is in following format

[
  ["R1_C1","R1_C2"],
  ["R2_C1","R2_C2"]
]