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charity-commission-extract

Python utilities for handling the import of data from the Charity Commission data extract

Get the data

The data can be accessed from http://data.charitycommission.gov.uk/default.aspx

Beginner's Guide

A beginner's guide to using the Charity Commission data extract.

Marc Lawson at NCVO has also written a guide to getting the data.

Utilities

import.py

This script accepts a ZIP file containing the Charity Commission data extract and converts it into CSV files. It uses the bcp.py script to convert the .bcp files into .csv. It also adds column headings to the beginning of the files.

Usage

  1. Download the Charity register extract ZIP file using the link above.
  2. Open the command line and navigate to the folder where you want to store the files
  3. Run the command python /path/to/script/import.py /path/to/download/zip/RegPlusExtract_February_2015.zip

The CSV files will be created in the directory you are in.

To use elsewhere use the function import_zip(zipfile) where zipfile is the path to the zip.

bcp.py

This script converts a .bcp file (which uses the delimiters @**@ and *@@*) into a more standard CSV file. It can be configured to use any delimiters accepted by python's CSV utility.

Usage

Use the function convert(bcpdata, csvfilename="", lineterminator='*@@*', delimiter='@**@', quote='"', newdelimiter=';').

  • bcpdata the full contents of the BCP file
  • csvfilename the path to the output file (will be "converted.csv" if left blank
  • lineterminator the line terminator used in the BCP file (default is *@@*)
  • delimiter the column delimiter used in the BCP file (default is @**@)
  • quote the character used to quote strings (default is ")
  • newdelimiter character used to delimit the CSV file (default is ,)

Note that the function puts every field in the CSV file in quotes, regardless of the type of field (so numbers, dates, etc are all quoted). This will need to be taken into account when importing data from these CSV files.