import csv import StringIO row = ['one\nelement'] #csv.register_dialect( "mydialect", escapechar='\\' ) csv.register_dialect( "mydialect", escapechar='\\', quoting=csv.QUOTE_NONE, lineterminator='\n' ) dialect = "mydialect" buf = StringIO.StringIO() writer = csv.writer(buf, dialect) writer.writerow(row); buf.seek(0) reader = csv.reader(buf, dialect) newrow = reader.next() assert row == newrow