Scenario

A CSV file containing customer data needs to be processed. You need to filter the data and generate a report showing the count of active customers.

Task

Write a Python script at /home/interview/process_customers.py that reads /home/interview/customers.csv, filters for customers with status "active", and writes the count to /home/interview/active_count.txt.

Step 1: Create the Python script

nano /home/interview/process_customers.py

Write a script that reads the CSV, filters for active customers, and counts them:

import csv

# Read CSV and filter for active customers
active_count = 0

with open('/home/interview/customers.csv', 'r') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        if row['status'] == 'active':
            active_count += 1

# Write count to output file
with open('/home/interview/active_count.txt', 'w') as outfile:
    outfile.write(str(active_count))

print(f"Active customers: {active_count}")

The csv.DictReader automatically parses the header row and provides each row as a dictionary with column names as keys.

Step 2: Run the script

python3 /home/interview/process_customers.py

Processes the CSV file and outputs the count to the text file.