How To Write A List To CSV In Python

In this Python tutorial, we will learn the Python write list to CSV. I will show 2 different examples explaining, how to write a list to a CSV file in Python.

Table of Contents

Python write a list to CSV

Here, we can see how to write a list to CSV in Python.

In this example, I have imported a module called csv and declared a variable as details.
And another variable called rows as rows = [ [‘sushma’, ‘2nd’, ‘2023’, ‘Physics’], [‘john’, ‘3rd’, ‘2022’, ‘M2’], [‘kushi’, ‘4th’, ‘2021’, ‘M4’]] and then to open the csv file, I have used with open(‘student.csv’, ‘w’) as f: is used to open the file.
The student.csv is the name of the file, the “w” mode is used to write the file, to write the list to the CSV file write = csv.writer(f), to write each row of the list to csv file writer.writerow() is used.

Example:

import csv 
Details = ['Name', 'class', 'passoutYear', 'subject']  
rows = [ ['sushma', '2nd', '2023', 'Physics'],  ['john', '3rd', '2022', 'M2'],  ['kushi', '4th', '2021', 'M4']] 
with open('student.csv', 'w') as f: 
    write = csv.writer(f) 
    write.writerow(Details) 
    write.writerows(rows)

You can see the list as the output in the below screenshot.

Let us check another example.

Write a list to CSV in Python

Python has built-in support for writing to and reading from CSV files through its CSV module. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to write a list to a CSV file.

Step 1: Create Your List

First, create a list or lists that you want to write to a CSV file in Python.

# Example list
data = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']

# Example list of lists (represents rows and columns)
data_matrix = [
    ['Name', 'Age', 'Country'],
    ['Alice', 30, 'USA'],
    ['Bob', 28, 'Canada'],
    ['Charlie', 35, 'UK']
]

Step 2: Write List to CSV

Now, let’s write the list to a CSV file using the csv module.

Example 1: Writing a Single List

In this example, the data list will be written to a CSV file where each element is in a new row.

import csv

data = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']

# Open file to write data
with open('fruits.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file)

    # Write each item in a new row
    for item in data:
        writer.writerow([item])

Read How to remove duplicate elements from a List in Python

Example 2: Writing a List of Lists (Matrix)

In this example, the data_matrix list will be written to a CSV file where each inner list represents a row.

import csv

data_matrix = [
    ['Name', 'Age', 'Country'],
    ['Alice', 30, 'USA'],
    ['Bob', 28, 'Canada'],
    ['Charlie', 35, 'UK']
]

# Open file to write data
with open('people.csv', 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file)

    # Write each inner list as a new row
    writer.writerows(data_matrix)

In the open() function, the ‘w’ parameter specifies that the file should be opened in write mode.
The newline=” parameter in the open() function ensures that newlines are handled properly on all platforms.
The writerow() method writes a single row to the CSV file. It takes an iterable (like a list) as an argument.
The writerows() method writes multiple rows at once. It takes a list of iterables.

This is how to write lists to CSV files in Python.