Reading multiple columns from large CSV files in PHP - php

I need to read two columns from a large CSV file. The CSV has multiple columns and can sometimes have following properties:
~25,000 lines
Contain spaces and blank rows
Be uneven (some columns longer than others)
In the example CSV file above, I would be only interested in the codes in the "Buy" and "Sell" columns (columns A and D).
I have written the following code (warning: it's not very elegant) to iterate over all rows and read only the columns I require. I create strings as inputs for 1 large MYSQL query (as opposed to running many small queries).
<?php
//Increase the allowed execution time
set_time_limit(0);
ini_set('memory_limit','256M');
ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);
//Set to detect the ending of CSV files
ini_set('auto_detect_line_endings', true);
$file = "test.csv";
$buy = $sold = ""; //Initialize empty strings
if (($handle = #fopen($file, "r")) !== FALSE) {
while (($pieces = fgetcsv($handle, 100, ",")) !== FALSE) {
if ( ! empty($pieces[0]) ) {
$buy .= $pieces[0] ." ";
}
if ( ! empty($pieces[3]) ) {
$sold .= $pieces[3] ." ";
}
}
echo "Buy ". $buy ."<br>"; //Do something with strings...
echo "Sold ". $sold ."<br>";
//Close the file
fclose($handle);
}
?>
My question is: is this the best way to perform such a task? The code works for smaller test files, but are there short comings I've overlooked in iterating over the CSV file like this?

First, reading any large files is memory consuming if you store them in variables. You may check out reading large files(more than 4GB in unix)
Secondly, you can output the $buy & $sold
on the while loop which might be more memory efficient in the way that those two variables are not saved on the memory.
Lastly, Use file seek method in php fseek documentation

Related

PHP Array Processing Ability Decreases

I need help processing files holding about 46k lines or more than 30MB of data.
My original idea was to open the file and turn each line into an array element. This worked the first time as the array held about 32k values total.
The second time, the process was repeated, the array only held 1011 elements, and finally, the third time it could only hold 100.
I'm confused and don't know much about the backend array processes. Can someone explain what is happening and fix the code?
function file_to_array($cvsFile){
$handle = fopen($cvsFile, "r");
$path = fread($handle, filesize($cvsFile));
fclose($handle);
//Turn the file into an array and separate lines to elements
$csv = explode(",", $path);
//Remove common double spaces
foreach ($csv as $key => $line){
$csv[$key] = str_replace(' ', '', str_getcsv($line));
}
array_filter($csv);
//get the row count for the file and array
$rows = count($csv);
$filerows = count(file($cvsFile)); //this no longer works
echo "File has $filerows and array has $rows";
return $csv;
}
The approach here can be split in 2.
Optimized file reading and processing
Proper storage solution
Optimized file processing can be done like so:
$handle = fopen($cvsFile, "r");
$rowsSucceed = 0;
$rowsFailed = 0;
if ($handle) {
while (($line = fgets($handle)) !== false) { // Reading file by line
// Process CSV line and check if it was parsed correctly
// And count as you go
if (!empty($parsedLine)) {
$csv[$key] = ... ;
$rowsSucceed++;
} else {
$rowsFailed++;
}
}
fclose($handle);
} else {
// Error handling
}
$totalLines = $rowsSucceed + $rowsFailed;
Also you can avoid array_filter() simply by not adding processed line if its empty.
It will allow to optimize memory usage during script execution.
Proper storage
Proper storage here is needed for performing operations on certain amount of data. File reading are ineffective and expensive. Using simple file based database like sqlite can help you a lot and increase overall performance of your script.
For this purpose you probably should process your CSV directly to database and than perform count operation on parsed data avoiding excessive file line counts etc.
Also it gives you further advantage on working with data not keeping it all in memory.
Your question says you want to "turn each line into an array element" but that is definitely not what you are doing. The code is quite clear; it reads the entire file into $path and then uses explode() to make one massive flat array of every element on every line. Then later you're trying to run str_getcsv() on each item, which of course isn't going to work; you've already exploded all the commas away.
Looping over the file using fgetcsv() makes more sense:
function file_to_array($cvsFile) {
$filerows = 0;
$handle = fopen($cvsFile, "r");
while ($line = fgetcsv($handle)) {
$filerows++;
// skip empty lines
if ($line[0] === null) {
continue;
}
//Remove common double spaces
$csv[] = str_replace(' ', '', $line);
}
//get the row count for the file and array
$rows = count($csv);
echo "File has $filerows and array has $rows";
fclose($handle);
return $csv;
}

Edit CSV field value for entire column

I have a CSV that is downloaded from the wholesaler everynight with updated prices.
What I need to do is edit the price column (2nd column) and multiply the current value by 1.3 (30%).
My code to read the provided CSV and take just the columns I need is below, however I can't seem to figure out how to edit the price column.
<?php
// open the csv file in write mode
$fp = fopen('var/import/tb_prices.csv', 'w');
// read csv file
if (($handle = fopen("var/import/Cbl_4036_2408.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {
$targetColumns = array(1, 2, 3); // get data from the 1st, 4th and 15th column
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
$targetData = array(); // array that hold target data
foreach($targetColumns as $column){ // loop throught the targeted columns array
if($column[2]){
$data[$column] = $data[0] * 1.3;
}
$targetData[] = $data[$column]; // get the data from the column
}
# Populate the multidimensional array.
$csvarray[$nn] = $targetData; // add target data to csvarray
// write csv file
fputcsv($fp, $targetData);
}
fclose($handle);
fclose($fp);
echo "CSV File Written Successfully!";
}
?>
Could somebody point me in the right direction please, explaining how you've worked out the function too so I can learn at the same time.
You are multiplying your price column always as - $data[0] * 1.3.
It may be wrong here.
Other views:
If you are doing it once in a lifetime of this data(csv) handling, try to solve it using mysql itself only. Create the table similar to the database, import the .csv data into that mysql table. And then, SQL operate as you want.
No loops; no coding, no file read/write, and precise control over what you want to do with UPDATE. You just need to be aware of the delimiters (line separators eg. \r\n, column separators (eg. comma or tab or semicolon) and data encoding in double/single-quotes or not)
Once you modify your data, you can export it back to csv again.
If you want to handle the .csv file itself, open it in one connection (read only mode), and write to another file - saving the original data.
you say that the column that contains the price is the second but then use that index with zero. anyway the whole thing can be easier
$handle = fopen("test.csv", "r");
if ( $handle !== FALSE) {
$out = "";
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ";")) !== FALSE) {
$data[1] = ((float)$data[1] * 1.3);
$out .= implode(";",$data) . "\n";
}
fclose($handle);
file_put_contents("test2.csv", $out);
}
this code open a csv file with comma as separator.
than read every line and for every line it's multiplies the second coloumn (index 1) for 1.3
this line
$out .= implode(";",$data) . "\n";
generate a line for new csb file. see implode on the officile documentation ...
after I close the connection to the file. and 'useless to have a connection with two files when you can do the writing of the second file in one fell swoop. the thing is true for small files

Handle Large File with PHP

I have a file with the size of around 10 GB or more. The file contains only numbers ranging from 1 to 10 on each line and nothing else. Now the task is to read the data[numbers] from the file and then sort the numbers in ascending or descending order and create a new file with the sorted numbers.
Can anyone of you please help me with the answer?
I'm assuming this is somekind of homework and goal for this is to sort more data than you can hold in your RAM?
Since you only have numbers 1-10, this is not that complicated task. Just open your input file and count how many occourances of every specific number you have. After that you can construct simple loop and write values into another file. Following example is pretty self explainatory.
$inFile = '/path/to/input/file';
$outFile = '/path/to/output/file';
$input = fopen($inFile, 'r');
if ($input === false) {
throw new Exception('Unable to open: ' . $inFile);
}
//$map will be array with size of 10, filled with 0-s
$map = array_fill(1, 10, 0);
//Read file line by line and count how many of each specific number you have
while (!feof($input)) {
$int = (int) fgets($input);
$map[$int]++;
}
fclose($input);
$output = fopen($outFile, 'w');
if ($output === false) {
throw new Exception('Unable to open: ' . $outFile);
}
/*
* Reverse array if you need to change direction between
* ascending and descending order
*/
//$map = array_reverse($map);
//Write values into your output file
foreach ($map AS $number => $count) {
$string = ((string) $number) . PHP_EOL;
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
fwrite($output, $string);
}
}
fclose($output);
Taking into account the fact, that you are dealing with huge files, you should also check script execution time limit for your PHP environment, following example will take VERY long for 10GB+ sized files, but since I didn't see any limitations concerning execution time and performance in your question, I'm assuming it is OK.
I had a similar issue before. Trying to manipulate such a large file ended up being huge drain on resources and it couldn't cope. The easiest solution I ended up with was to try and import it into a MySQL database using a fast data dump function called LOAD DATA INFILE
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/load-data.html
Once it's in you should be able to manipulate the data.
Alternatively, you could just read the file line by line while outputting the result into another file line by line with the sorted numbers. Not too sure how well this would work though.
Have you had any previous attempts at it or are you just after a possible method of doing it?
If that's all you don't need PHP (if you have a Linux maschine at hand):
sort -n file > file_sorted-asc
sort -nr file > file_sorted-desc
Edit: OK, here's your solution in PHP (if you have a Linux maschine at hand):
<?php
// Sort ascending
`sort -n file > file_sorted-asc`;
// Sort descending
`sort -nr file > file_sorted-desc`;
?>
:)

Split large Excel/Csv file to multiple files on PHP or Javascript

I have excel(file.xls)/csv(file.csv) file that contains/will contain hundreds of thousands of entry, even millions I guess. Is it possible to split this one to multiple file? Like file.xls to file1.xls, file2.xls, file3.xls and so on.
Are there any libraries to use? Is this possible on PHP? or how about javascript?
On where I can specify how many rows to be included on each file?
Thanks
Quick and dirty way of splitting a CSV file into several CSV files
$inputFile = 'input.csv';
$outputFile = 'output';
$splitSize = 10000;
$in = fopen($inputFile, 'r');
$rowCount = 0;
$fileCount = 1;
while (!feof($in)) {
if (($rowCount % $splitSize) == 0) {
if ($rowCount > 0) {
fclose($out);
}
$out = fopen($outputFile . $fileCount++ . '.csv', 'w');
}
$data = fgetcsv($in);
if ($data)
fputcsv($out, $data);
$rowCount++;
}
fclose($out);
Yes it is possible to do that in PHP and with CSV files. You basically iterate over the large file and chunk each X rows, forwarding those rows to another file.
You find the information how to open the large CSV file as an iterator in this answer here:
Answer to "how to extract data from csv file in php"
Then you need to chunk the iterator each X rows parts. That can be done as outline here:
Answer to "Need some advice with PHP loop"
Just instead of outputting into multiple <ul>...</ul> HTML lists, you copy over into a new files. That basically works like outlined in:
Answer to "How can I split a CSV file in PHP?"
However this time you want to use the SplFileObject::fputcsv method. Take care you use the latest stable PHP for this, otherwise you need do different, see fputcsv().
If the first line of the original file contains column-headers, you might be as well interested in the following:
Answer to "Process CSV Into Array With Column Headings For Key"
It just shows some ways to extend / process the incomming file. You might not need the full abstraction done there, just keeping the first line around might do it already.
I think You can also use "split by file size":
$part = 1;
$maxSize = 50;//50 Mb
$fopen = fopen('filename.csv','r') or die ('ERROR');
while (($line = fgetcsv($fopen, 10000, ";")) !== FALSE) {
$ftowrite = fopen("Part_$part.csv",'a');
fputcsv($ftowrite,$line);
clearstatcache();
$size = filesize ( "review_p$part.csv" ) / 1000000;
if ($size > $maxSize) {
fclose($ftowrite);
$part++;
}
}

Using fseek to start reading a CSV after a certain number of lines

I am using the current code to read a csv file and add it to an array:
echo "starting CSV import<br>";
$current_row = 1;
$handle = fopen($csv, "r");
while ( ($data = fgetcsv($handle, 10000, ",") ) !== FALSE )
{
$number_of_fields = count($data);
if ($current_row == 1) {
//Header line
for ($c=0; $c < $number_of_fields; $c++)
{
$header_array[$c] = $data[$c];
}
} else {
//Data line
for ($c=0; $c < $number_of_fields; $c++)
{
$data_array[$header_array[$c]] = $data[$c];
}
array_push($products, $data_array);
}
$current_row++;
}
fclose($handle);
echo "finished CSV import <br>";
However when using a very large CSV this times out on the server, or has a memory limit error.
I'd like a way to do it in stages, so after the first say 100 lines it will refresh the page, starting at line 101.
I will probably be doing this with a meta refresh and a URL parameter.
I just need to know how to adapt that code above to start at the line I tell it to.
I have looked into fseek() but I'm not sure how to implement this here.
Can you please help?
The timout can be circumvented using
ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0);
When experiencing problems with the memory limit, it may be wise to take a step back and look at what you're actually doing with the data you're processing. Are you pushing the data into a database? calculate something off the data but don't need to store the actual data, …
Do you really need to push (array_push($products, $data_array);) the rows into an array (for later processing)? can you instead write to the database directly? or calculate directly? or build an html <table> directly? or whatever the hell you're doing right then an there, within the while() loop, without pushing everything into an array first?
If you're able to chunk the processing, I guess you don't need that array at all. Otherwise you'd have to restore the array for every chunk - not solving the memory issue one bit.
If you can manage to change your processing algorithm to waste less memory / time, you should seriously consider that over any chunked processing requiring a round-trip to the browser (for so many performance and security reasons…).
Anyways, you can, at any time, identify the current stream offset with ftell() and re-set to that position using fseek(). You'd only need to pass that integer to your next iteration.
Also there is no need for your inner for() loops. This should produce the same results:
<?php
$products = array();
$cols = null;
$first = true;
$handle = fopen($csv, "r");
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 10000, ",")) !== false) {
if ($first) {
$cols = $data;
$first = false;
} else {
$products[] = array_combine($cols, $data);
}
}
fclose($handle);
echo "finished CSV import <br>";

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