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Asked: 2026-06-10T15:56:12+00:00

Is it possible to use csv.writer to write data to a variable rather than

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Is it possible to use csv.writer to write data to a variable rather than a file?

I was hoping I could do something like this:

data = ''
csv.writer(data)
# ...... (I have removed the csv processing code for brevity)
message = EmailMessage('Invoice for 2012', 'h', 'noreply@test.co.uk', ['test@test.co.uk'])
message.attach('invoice.csv', data, 'text/csv')
message.send()

When I execute the code I get the following error:

   argument 1 must have a "write" method
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The csv.writer class needs a file-like object, something with a .write() method. A StringIO class would be best here:

    from cStringIO import StringIO

data = StringIO()
csv.writer(data)
# write your stuff
message = EmailMessage('Invoice for 2012', 'h', 'noreply@test.co.uk', ['test@test.co.uk'])
message.attach('invoice.csv', data.getvalue(), 'text/csv')
message.send()

    I used the C-variant of the StringIO module there; the advantage is speed, the disadvantage that you can use each instance only as a writable or a readable file. Since all you do is write to it before retrieving the written data, that’s just fine.

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