Delete blank lines in CSV file with PHP or PHPExcel? - php

Question

I am trying programmatically delete blank lines in CSV files using PHP. Files are uploaded to a site and converted to CSV using PHPExcel. A particular type of CSV is being generated with blank lines in between the data rows, and I'm trying to clean them up with PHP without any luck. Here is an example of what this CSV looks like: https://gist.github.com/vinmassaro/467ea98151e26a79d556
I need to load the CSV, remove the blank lines, and save it, using either PHPExcel or standard PHP functions. Thanks in advance.
EDIT:
Here is a snippet from how it is currently converted with PHPExcel. This is part of a Drupal hook, acting on a file that has just been uploaded. I couldn't get the PHPExcel removeRow method working because it didn't seem to work on blank lines, only empty data rows.
// Load the PHPExcel IOFactory.
require_once(drupal_realpath(drupal_get_path('module', 'custom')) . '/PHPExcel/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php');
// Load the uploaded file into PHPExcel for normalization.
$loaded_file = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load(drupal_realpath($original_file->uri));
$writer = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($loaded_file, 'CSV');
$writer->setDelimiter(",");
$writer->setEnclosure("");
// Get path to files directory and build a new filename and filepath.
$files_directory = drupal_realpath(variable_get('file_public_path', conf_path() . '/files'));
$new_filename = pathinfo($original_file->filename, PATHINFO_FILENAME) . '.csv';
$temp_filepath = $files_directory . '/' . $new_filename;
// Save the file with PHPExcel to the temp location. It will be deleted later.
$writer->save($temp_filepath);

Answer 1

If you want to use phpexcel, search for CSV.php
and edit this File:
// Write rows to file
for ($row = 1; $row <= $maxRow; ++$row) {
// Convert the row to an array...
$cellsArray = $sheet->rangeToArray('A'.$row.':'.$maxCol.$row, '', $this->preCalculateFormulas);
// edit by ger
// if last row, then no linebreak will added
if($row == $maxRow){ $ifMaxRow = TRUE; }else{ $ifMaxRow = False; }
// ... and write to the file
$this->writeLine($fileHandle, $cellsArray[0], $ifMaxRow);
}
at the end of file edit this
/**
* Write line to CSV file
*
* edit by ger
*
* #param mixed $pFileHandle PHP filehandle
* #param array $pValues Array containing values in a row
* #throws PHPExcel_Writer_Exception
*/
private function writeLine($pFileHandle = null, $pValues = null, $ifMaxRow = false)
{
...
// Add enclosed string
$line .= $this->enclosure . $element . $this->enclosure;
}
insert this following
if($ifMaxRow == false){
// Add line ending
$line .= $this->lineEnding;
}

Answer 2

Using str_replace as in Mihai Iorga's comment will work. Something like:
$csv = file_get_contents('path/file.csv');
$no_blanks = str_replace("\r\n\r\n", "\r\n", $csv);
file_put_contents('path/file.csv', $no_blanks);
I copied the text from the example you posted, and this worked, although I had to change the "find" parameter to to "\r\n \r\n" instead of "\r\n\r\n" because of a single space on each of the blank-looking lines.

Answer 3

Try this:
<?php
$handle = fopen("test.csv", 'r'); //your csv file
$clean = fopen("clean.csv", 'a+'); //new file with no empty rows
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
$num = count($data);
if($num > 1)
fputcsv($clean, $data ,";");
}
fclose($handle);
fclose($clean);
?>
Tested on my localhost.
Output Data:
Initial File:
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6,col7,col8
0,229.500,7.4,3165.5,62,20.3922,15.1594,0
1,229.600,8.99608,3156.75,62,15.6863,16.882,0
2,229.700,7.2549,3130.25,62,16.8627,15.9633,0
3,229.800,7.1098,3181,62,17.2549,14.1258,0
Clean Csv File:
col1 col2 col3 col4 col5 col6 col7 col8
0 229.500 7.4 3165.5 62 203.922 151.594 0
1 229.600 899.608 3156.75 62 156.863 16.882 0
2 229.700 72.549 3130.25 62 168.627 159.633 0
3 229.800 71.098 3181 62 172.549 141.258 0