I have been able to create a csv with python using the input from several users on this site and I wish to express my gratitude for your posts. I am now stumped and will post my first question.

My input.csv looks like this:

day,month,year,lat,long
01,04,2001,45.00,120.00
02,04,2003,44.00,118.00

I am trying to delete the "year" column and all of its entries. In total there is 40+ entries with a range of years from 1960-2010.

import csv
with open("source","rb") as source:
    rdr= csv.reader( source )
    with open("result","wb") as result:
        wtr= csv.writer( result )
        for r in rdr:
            wtr.writerow( (r[0], r[1], r[3], r[4]) )

BTW, the for loop can be removed, but not really simplified.

        in_iter= ( (r[0], r[1], r[3], r[4]) for r in rdr )
        wtr.writerows( in_iter )

Also, you can stick in a hyper-literal way to the requirements to delete a column. I find this to be a bad policy in general because it doesn't apply to removing more than one column. When you try to remove the second, you discover that the positions have all shifted and the resulting row isn't obvious. But for one column only, this works.

            del r[2]
            wtr.writerow( r )