Logging to CSV files in Raspberry Pi - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Logging to CSV files

📖 Scenario: You have a Raspberry Pi that collects temperature readings every hour. You want to save these readings in a CSV file so you can analyze them later.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple Python program that logs temperature readings with timestamps into a CSV file.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of temperature readings with timestamps

Set a CSV filename variable

Write the temperature data to the CSV file with headers

Print a confirmation message after writing

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Logging sensor data like temperature on a Raspberry Pi is common in home automation and environmental monitoring projects.

💼 Career

Understanding how to log data to CSV files is a basic skill for DevOps and IoT engineers who manage device data and automate reports.

1

Create temperature data list

Create a list called temperature_data with these exact entries: ("2024-06-01 10:00", 22.5), ("2024-06-01 11:00", 23.0), ("2024-06-01 12:00", 23.3).

Raspberry Pi

# Create the temperature_data list with timestamp and temperature tuples
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list of tuples where each tuple has a timestamp string and a temperature float.

2

Set CSV filename

Create a variable called csv_filename and set it to the string "temperature_log.csv".

Raspberry Pi

temperature_data = [("2024-06-01 10:00", 22.5), ("2024-06-01 11:00", 23.0), ("2024-06-01 12:00", 23.3)]
# Set the CSV filename
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a string variable to store the filename.

3

Write data to CSV file

Import the csv module. Use open(csv_filename, 'w', newline='') to open the file for writing. Create a csv.writer object called writer. Write a header row with ["Timestamp", "Temperature"]. Then write all rows from temperature_data using a for loop with variables timestamp and temp.

Raspberry Pi

temperature_data = [("2024-06-01 10:00", 22.5), ("2024-06-01 11:00", 23.0), ("2024-06-01 12:00", 23.3)]
csv_filename = "temperature_log.csv"
# Import csv and write data to the CSV file
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the csv module to write rows. Remember to write the header first.

4

Print confirmation message

Add a print statement after writing the CSV file that outputs exactly: "Data logged to temperature_log.csv".

Raspberry Pi

import csv

temperature_data = [("2024-06-01 10:00", 22.5), ("2024-06-01 11:00", 23.0), ("2024-06-01 12:00", 23.3)]
csv_filename = "temperature_log.csv"

with open(csv_filename, 'w', newline='') as file:
    writer = csv.writer(file)
    writer.writerow(["Timestamp", "Temperature"])
    for timestamp, temp in temperature_data:
        writer.writerow([timestamp, temp])
# Print confirmation message
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print() to show the message after the file is written.