Replacing zero with no data in CSV file using ArcPy cursor

Question

I have a CSV file with zero as some of the attribute values. Trying to use cursors and replace all zeros with no data or blank values. I am able to replace any numbers. But not able to update with NULL or no data. The field data type is integer. Tried with Search and Insert cursor, also tried converting to DBF table and then replace zero with null values. Did not work as it seems it is considering null as string. Below is the code

import arcpy
import csv

path= "pm2.5.csv"
fieldObs=arcpy.ListFields(path)
fieldNames= []

for field in fieldObs:
    fieldNames.append(field.name)
print(fieldNames)

updateRows = arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(path, fieldNames)
for updaterow in updateRows:
    if updaterow =="0"
       updaterow is None
    curU.updateRow(updaterow)
del updateRow, updateRows

Answer 1

Do you have a particular reason to use cursor to update a csv ? It's not the right tool for the job if you ask me.

Instead, you could try to use the pandas module. It comes natively with the Arcmap python installation, so no installation required.

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("pm2.5.csv")
df = df.replace(0, '')  # Replace 0 with blank values
df.to_csv("pm2.5_nan.csv")  # Save to a new file

You could also import numpy as np and change the replace line with df = df.replace(0, np.nan). However, NaN are considered as float values in python so all your values would be converted to float values instead of integers. When saving to a csv, the NaN will be converted to blank values.

More info on the read_csv function : https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/reference/api/pandas.read_csv.html