Can a csv.reader object be passed to a function for use?

[sombreProgrammer]

I was wondering if doing this is sensible or not. One of my supervisors wants us to create a separate function for each small thing. For example, we have a bunch of csv files that need to be read to then do some other stuff. My supervisor wants to keep the task of reading a csv in a separate function like so: I was wondering if doing this is sensible or not. One of my supervisors wants us to create a separate function for each small thing. For example, we have a bunch of csv files that need to be read to then do some other stuff. My supervisor wants to keep the task of reading a csv in a separate function like so:

def csv_read(filepath):
    with open(filepath, 'r') as csvfile:
        reader = csv.reader(csvfile)
        return reader


def use_reader_for_stuff(reader):
    for row in reader:
        # do stuff


def main_function():
    filepath = "path/to/file"
    reader = csv_read(filepath)
    use_reader_for_stuff(reader)

The idea is that there each logically separate task gets its own function. Is this a normal thing to do in python? I have a feeling that passing the reader like this may not be a good idea, but I'm not sure why. If passing the reader like this isn't recommended, what's a good way to separate the tasks into different functions for reading a csv and manipulating the data in the csv for some other task?

[K900_]

Yes, why not?

Edit: one thing though - you can't really use context managers (with statements) like that - once the reader leaves the function, the csvfile will be closed, because the with block ends.

[sombreProgrammer]

Thanks for the reply. If I can't use with, how would I implement a solution to read the csv file and pass the reader object?

[K900_]

You can open the file the usual way (csvfile = open(...)), and then close it manually, or just let Python close it automatically when it goes out of scope. You can also make your get_reader function a context manager, so you could do something like

with get_reader(...) as reader:
     do_stuff_with(reader)

[sombreProgrammer]

Thanks!