The data provided is clearly *sample* data, and the code provided is of the same nature. The OP is asking about how to approach this problem. You're complaining that complete, robust solutions are not being provided, and that's where I think you are missing the point.

Oh, sorry, I thought one of the points of answering "textfile to CSV" might be how to produce valid (in the sense of parseable) CSV.

I'm with you.

The data is a simple sample. The code provided is also a simple sample. The OP did not ask for a production quality solution nor was one given.

On the other hand, jZed provided no solution to the task at hand. I haven't yet needed to use a CSV parsing module but would love to see a good example provided here.

The data is a simple sample.

No it isn't, it has embedded newlines.

jZed provided no solution to the task at hand

That's because I was waiting for the OP to clarify what he/she really wanted. Now that the OP has done that, I've given the example, please see my code.

I am still not understanding what output you want. If your data is this:

H1:
T1.1
T1.2
H2:
T2.1
T2.2

Do you want this:

H1,H2
"T1.1\nT1.2\n","T2.1\nT2.2\n"

Or this:

H1,H2
"T1.1\n","T2.1\n"
"T1.2\n","T2.2\n"

Or something else? And another ambiguity: you haven't mentioned whether headings can repeat in your input data (for example more than one section labeled heading1).

Closer to the first one, what I'm exactly looking for is

H1,T1.1 CRLF T1.2 crlf,H2,T2.1 CRLF T2.2 CRLF
[download]

While the headings are supposed to be same in all of my files, I.e. they will always appear in the same order, and all of the headings will appear, I know they arn't. So I'm figuring that I'll need to have the heading as part of the record, that way if for example I have something like

H1:
T1.1
T1.2
H3:
T3.1
T3.2
T3.3
[download]

I can generate something like:

H1,T1.1 CRLF T1.2 CRLF,H3,T3.1 CRLF T3.2 CRLF T3.3 CRLF
[download]

and from that generate...

H1,T1.1 CRLF T1.2 CRLF,H2,,H3,T3.1 CRLF T3.2 CRLF T3.3 CRLF
[download]

Since the H2 heading didn't appear in the data, I will have to force in in the final file. I planned this to be a two steep process. I hope that explains things better. Bentov