How to Read a CSV File in PHP

PHP has a function called fgetcsv that allows you to place the values from a comma separated value (csv) file into an array. The function reads one line (row) at a time, so it must be placed within a loop in order to process an entire file. The function arguments are as follows: resource, length of line, delimiter, enclosure and escape. You should specify the length to be longer than the longest line. Use the delimiter argument if your file uses something other than a comma. If your data is enclosed in single and double quotes, specify that in the enclosure argument. The escape value defaults to "new line", but can be specified as something else.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• PHP

1. Open a blank text file in any text editor.

2. Start your php script with the line: <?php

3. Set the starting row number with the line: $row = 1;

4. Open the .csv file to read only with the line: $file=fopen("example.csv", "r");

5. Start the while loop that will run through the data and place each line into an array:
   while (($data = fgetcsv($file, 8000, ",")) !== FALSE) {

6. Count the number of fields in each line: $num = count($data);

7. Start a for loop to print out the data to the screen: for ($x=0; $x < $num; $x++) {

8. Print the data to the screen and close the for and while loops: echo $data[$c] ."\n";}}

9. Close the file with the line: fclose($file);

10. Close the php script: ?>

11. Save the script with the ".php" extension. The entire script will look like this:
    <?php
    $row = 1;
    $file = fopen("example.csv", "r");
    while (($data = fgetcsv($file, 8000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
        $num = count($data);
        $row++;
        for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {
            echo $data[$c] . "\n";}}
    fclose($file);
    ?>

References

• PHP Manual