CSV to Array PHP - php

Question

I know there are a lot of resources out there for putting a CSV into an associative array, but I can't find anything that helps a noob like me do exactly what I want to do.
I currently have an associative array defined inside my PHP file:
$users = array(
'v4f25' => 'Stan Parker',
'ntl35' => 'John Smith',
);
I would like to move that array into a CSV file (users.txt) so:
v4f25, Stan Parker
ntl35, John Smith
The next step is to import users.txt so I can use it precisely like I was using the array $users.
Any help here? The last code I tried returned this: (which is not what I want)
array(2) {
["v4f25"]=>
string(5) "ntl35"
["Stan Parker"]=>
string(10) "John Smith"
}

Answer 1

What about the following?
$data = array();
if ($fp = fopen('csvfile.csv', 'r')) {
while (!feof($fp)) {
$row = fgetcsv($fp);
$data[$row[0]] = $row[1];
}
fclose($fp);
}

Answer 2

$users = array(
'v4f25' => 'Stan Parker',
'ntl35' => 'John Smith',
);
$fp = fopen('users.txt', 'w');
if ($fp) {
foreach ($users as $key => $value) {
fputcsv($fp, array($key, $value));
}
fclose($fp);
} else {
exit('Could not open CSV file')
}
See: fputcsv()
UPDATE - in the comments you're interested in how to read the file and get your users back out. Here's the return trip:
$users = array();
if (($handle = fopen("my-csv-file.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
$users[$data[0]] = $data[1];
}
fclose($handle);
} else {
exit('Could not open CSV file');
}
if (count($users) == 0) {
exit('CSV file empty: no users found');
}

Answer 3

Here's a solution using fputcsv() which flattens the key/value pairs to an array before writing to disk.
$filehandle = fopen("csvfile.csv", "w");
if ($filehandle) {
foreach ($users as $key => $value) {
fputcsv($filehandle, array($key, $value);
}
fclose($filehandle);
}
else // couldn't open file

Answer 4

Try this (assuming your strings contain no commas):
$users = array(
'v4f25' => 'Stan Parker',
'ntl35' => 'John Smith',
);
foreach ($users as $k => $v) {
print "$k, $v\n";
}
Obviously you could then create the CSV file like so:
php above_script.php > outfile.csv
Now, to get from CSV back into an array you could use something like:
$file = 'outfile.csv';
$arr = array();
if (file_exists($file)) {
foreach (explode("\n", file_get_contents($file)) as $l) {
list($k, $v) = explode(',', $l);
$arr[trim($k)] = trim($l);
}
}
print_r($arr, true);
NOTES:
If your strings do (or might) contain commas, then you'll probably want to use a PHP builtin function to decode them - in which case the answers by harald and artlung are useful.
RFC 4180 describes how commas (and other values) are encoded in CSV, in case you want to roll your own CSV encoding/decoding functions for whatever reason.