import csv import StringIO class Dialect(csv.Dialect): delimiter = ',' quotechar = '"' doublequote = True skipinitialspace = True lineterminator = '\n' quoting = csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL data = '''\ "one", 2, "three (line 1) (line 2)" ''' fileobj = StringIO.StringIO(data) csv_reader = csv.reader(fileobj, dialect=Dialect()) file_rows = list(csv_reader) csv_reader = csv.reader(data.splitlines(), dialect=Dialect()) iter_rows = list(csv_reader) print 'results from file I/O:' print file_rows print print 'results from iterator I/O:' print iter_rows