library re-orders columns when exporting content.

[ghost]

Hello,

I've been using tablib indirectly through records to produce some Excel reports from a database, and I've noticed that while I add my content in a specific order, when exporting, the order of the columns is not the same as I added.

Looking at the documentation of tablib -- if the examples are not merely illustrative -- this should be noticeable, as for instance, when exporting to JSON, YAML, and CSV, the output "columns" are re-ordered differently for each format:

>>> print data.json
[
  {
    "last_name": "Adams",
    "age": 90,
    "first_name": "John"
  },
  {
    "last_name": "Ford",
    "age": 83,
    "first_name": "Henry"
  }
]

>>> print data.yaml
- {age: 90, first_name: John, last_name: Adams}
- {age: 83, first_name: Henry, last_name: Ford}

>>> print data.csv
first_name,last_name,age
John,Adams,90
Henry,Ford,83

I'd appreciate if this could be fixed in such way that output would always have the same structure as what was inputted.

Thanks

@kennethreitz

[lipi]

Just noticed the same thing today, after importing data as a dictionary.

So instead of dictionary import I added headers as a list, then appended each row as a list. Export kept the column order after this.

So it is probably not the export itself, but the internal representation being a dictionary, where field order is not guaranteed.

[lipi]

This issue is a duplicate of https://github.com/kennethreitz/tablib/issues/287

[iurisilvio]

Closed as duplicate.