How to get list into ONE cell in csv file python ( in my case list of authors of a book ), all authors in one cell

Question

I am trying to get names of authors of a book from a books website. I get the names in one column but multiple rows. I want all names in one cell of csv. Following is my full code

from selenium import webdriver    
import pandas as pd    
driver = webdriver.Chrome()    
site = 'https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50148349-manto-and-chughtai?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ZARMElvyyt&rank=3'

driver.get(site)    
authors = [ ]    
names = driver.find_elements_by_xpath('//div[@class="authorName__container"]')

for name in names:
    authors.append(name.find_element_by_xpath('.//a[@class="authorName"]').text)

df = pd.DataFrame({'Author Names': authors})    
df.to_csv("Authors_list.csv", index=False)
print(df)

Here is my output, I am getting, I want all these four names in one cell

Answer 1

I don't have Selenium installed and setup as to test it.
Could you please try this small tweak?

from selenium import webdriver

import pandas as pd

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

site = 'https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50148349-manto-and-chughtai?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ZARMElvyyt&rank=3'

driver.get(site)

authors = [ ]

names = driver.find_elements_by_xpath('//div[@class="authorName__container"]')

for name in names:

    authors.append(name.find_element_by_xpath('.//a[@class="authorName"]').text)

authors_in_one_cell = ', '.join(authors)

df = pd.DataFrame({'Author Names': authors_in_one_cell})

df.to_csv("Authors_list.csv", index=False)

print(df)

Answer 2

Pandas dataframe.to_csv() method will write each list element with a newline from the looks of it. You're unintentionally accomplishing what this stack overflow question was trying to do here.

Try making authors a string, and appending each new author to that string instead of a list. As long as there's no commas in the author's names, all values will appear in the same cell after opening in office.