Excel
Writing a DataFrame to Excel With Formatting in pandas
Format a pandas DataFrame in Excel with XlsxWriter: header style, number and date formats, auto-fit widths, a table with banding and conditional formatting.
7 min read
Library
Everything you need to level up your coding skills.
CSV
Removing Null Bytes and Control Characters From a CSV
A NUL byte can cut a PostgreSQL load short while Python keeps it. Find them with grep, strip them from 130 MB in under a second, and keep tabs and newlines.
6 min read
PostgreSQLGuide
Getting Fast With psql and Habits That Save Hours a Week
Get fast with psql: meta commands, a psqlrc, expanded output and pagers, scripts, variables, timing, editor integration, output to files and pgpass.
18 min read
JSON
Why JSON Parse Fails on a Byte Order Mark and How to Fix It
A UTF-8 byte order mark in front of JSON breaks strict parsers in Python and Node. What the three bytes are, who adds them and how to read or remove them.
7 min read
CSV
How to Open a UTF8 CSV in Excel Without Garbled Text
Excel on Windows often shows UTF-8 accents as à symbols. Add a BOM when you write the file, or import it with the right encoding, and check the bytes first.
7 min read
Excel
Exporting a Query to Excel From PostgreSQL With Python
Run a PostgreSQL query from Python and write an Excel file with correct types, converting timestamptz, numeric and ids so the workbook opens cleanly.
7 min read
XML
Encoding Mismatch Errors in XML Documents From Mixed Sources
When an XML feed mixes encodings or was encoded twice: why detectors guess wrong on short text, the UTF-8 first rule and per-line fallback.
7 min read
CSV
Fixing Mojibake in a CSV Without Losing Any More Data
Repair text like José inside a CSV by reversing the wrong decode, with ftfy or two lines of Python, and learn which garbling can never be undone.
7 min read
YAML
YAML Error Did Not Find Expected Key and How to Fix It
Why a line indented between two levels raises did not find expected key, how PyYAML words it differently, and how to realign. Output from three parsers.
6 min read
ExcelGuide
Sending Database Results to Excel Properly Every Time
Export SQL results to Excel that open cleanly: keep types and dates, carry formatting, use several sheets, resist formula injection and run on a schedule.
18 min read
JSON
Python JSONDecodeError Extra Data and Concatenated Objects
Extra data means a valid JSON value was followed by more text. Why concatenated objects and JSON Lines trigger it and three ways to read them in Python.
7 min read
CSV
Converting a CSV From Latin 1 or Windows 1252 to UTF8
Convert a legacy CSV to UTF-8 with iconv or Python, choose between Latin 1 and Windows 1252, and handle the five bytes Windows 1252 leaves undefined.
7 min read
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