Reading from comma or tab delimited text file - php

Question

I need to read the data from a file that can be either comma or tab delimited. I now that there is a function getcsv but it accepts only one possible delimiter.
Any ideas how to handle this?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Starting from PHP 5.3, you can use str_getcsv() to read individual lines using different delimiters.
$someCondition = someConditionToDetermineTabOrComma();
$delimiter = $someCondition ? "," : "\t";
$fp = fopen('mydata.csv', 'r');
while ( !feof($fp) )
{
$line = fgets($fp, 2048);
$data = str_getcsv($line, $delimiter);
doSomethingWithData($data);
}
fclose($fp);

Answer 2

You can specify a delimiter for fgetcsv(). This is an example of reading tab-delimited files,
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, "\t")) !== FALSE) {
...
}

Answer 3

Here is an example that will read mydata.txt CSV fields
$tab = "\t";
$fp = fopen('mydata.txt', 'r');
while ( !feof($fp) )
{
$line = fgets($fp, 2048);
$data_txt = str_getcsv($line, $tab);
//Get First Line of Data over here
print_r($data_txt);
exit;
}
fclose($fp);

Answer 4

$filePath = "somefile.txt";
$delimiter = "\t";
$file = new \SplFileObject($filePath);
while (!$file->eof()) {
$line = $file->fgetcsv($delimiter);
print_r($line);
}

Answer 5

Read the whole file, or line by line and split it using split.
There you can include a regex with arbitrary delimiters. I have not PHP here to test a statement, but php.net -> search for split().
There you also have a comment relating to regex.

Answer 6

you can try explode
explode ( string $delimiter , string $string [, int $limit ] );

Answer 7

Here is the function that I added to my utilities library for future use. I derived it from NSSec's answer.
This solution allows you to specify whether you want to use the first line as keys for the array. I will probably add the ability to pass an array to be used for keys for the $first_line_keys parameter at some point.
/**
* Converts a CSV file into an array
* NOTE: file does NOT have to have .csv extension
*
* $file - path to file to convert (string)
* $delimiter - field delimiter (string)
* $first_line_keys - use first line as array keys (bool)
* $line_lenght - set length to retrieve for each line (int)
*/
public static function CSVToArray($file, $delimiter = ',', $first_line_keys = true, $line_length = 2048){
// file doesn't exist
if( !file_exists($file) ){
return false;
}
// open file
$fp = fopen($file, 'r');
// add each line to array
$csv_array = array();
while( !feof($fp) ){
// get current line
$line = fgets($fp, $line_length);
// line to array
$data = str_getcsv($line, $delimiter);
// keys/data count mismatch
if( isset($keys) && count($keys) != count($data) ){
// skip to next line
continue;
// first line, first line should be keys
}else if( $first_line_keys && !isset($keys) ){
// use line data for keys
$keys = $data;
// first line used as keys
}else if($first_line_keys){
// add as associative array
$csv_array[] = array_combine($keys, $data);
// first line NOT used for keys
}else{
// add as numeric array
$csv_array[] = $data;
}
}
// close file
fclose($fp);
// nothing found
if(!$csv_array){
return array();
}
// return csv array
return $csv_array;
} // CSVToArray()