How to create an array from a CSV file using PHP and the fgetcsv function

I think the str_getcsv() syntax is much cleaner, it also doesn't require the CSV to be stored in the file system.

$csv = str_getcsv(file_get_contents('myCSVFile.csv'));

echo '<pre>';
print_r($csv);
echo '</pre>';

Or for a line by line solution:

$csv = array();
$lines = file('myCSVFile.csv', FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES);

foreach ($lines as $key => $value)
{
    $csv[$key] = str_getcsv($value);
}

echo '<pre>';
print_r($csv);
echo '</pre>';

Or for a line by line solution with no str_getcsv():

$csv = array();
$file = fopen('myCSVFile.csv', 'r');

while (($result = fgetcsv($file)) !== false)
{
    $csv[] = $result;
}

fclose($file);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($csv);
echo '</pre>';

Like you said in your title, fgetcsv is the way to go. It's pretty darn easy to use.

$file = fopen('myCSVFile.csv', 'r');
while (($line = fgetcsv($file)) !== FALSE) {
  //$line is an array of the csv elements
  print_r($line);
}
fclose($file);

You'll want to put more error checking in there in case fopen() fails, but this works to read a CSV file line by line and parse the line into an array.

I have created a function which will convert a csv string to an array. The function knows how to escape special characters, and it works with or without enclosure chars.

$dataArray = csvstring_to_array( file_get_contents('Address.csv'));

I tried it with your csv sample and it works as expected!

function csvstring_to_array($string, $separatorChar = ',', $enclosureChar = '"', $newlineChar = "\n") {
    // @author: Klemen Nagode
    $array = array();
    $size = strlen($string);
    $columnIndex = 0;
    $rowIndex = 0;
    $fieldValue="";
    $isEnclosured = false;
    for($i=0; $i<$size;$i++) {

        $char = $string{$i};
        $addChar = "";

        if($isEnclosured) {
            if($char==$enclosureChar) {

                if($i+1<$size && $string{$i+1}==$enclosureChar){
                    // escaped char
                    $addChar=$char;
                    $i++; // dont check next char
                }else{
                    $isEnclosured = false;
                }
            }else {
                $addChar=$char;
            }
        }else {
            if($char==$enclosureChar) {
                $isEnclosured = true;
            }else {

                if($char==$separatorChar) {

                    $array[$rowIndex][$columnIndex] = $fieldValue;
                    $fieldValue="";

                    $columnIndex++;
                }elseif($char==$newlineChar) {
                    echo $char;
                    $array[$rowIndex][$columnIndex] = $fieldValue;
                    $fieldValue="";
                    $columnIndex=0;
                    $rowIndex++;
                }else {
                    $addChar=$char;
                }
            }
        }
        if($addChar!=""){
            $fieldValue.=$addChar;

        }
    }

    if($fieldValue) { // save last field
        $array[$rowIndex][$columnIndex] = $fieldValue;
    }
    return $array;
}