PHP str_getcsv() Function

What is PHP str_getcsv() Function?

If you want to parse a comma separated values (CSV) of a string into an array, use PHP str_getcsv() function.

Syntax:

str_getcsv(string, separator, enclosure, escape)

Parameters:

The Function has 1 required parameter and 3 optional parameters-

string (Required): It specifies a CSV string.

separator (Optional): It specifies a single-byte character which is used as value separator (or delimiter). Its default value is comma (,).

enclosure (Optional): It specifies a single-byte character which is used to enclose values. Its default value is double quote (“).

escape (Optional): It specifies a single-byte character which is used to escape special characters. Its default value is backslash (\).

Return Values:

The function returns an indexed array that contains the values parsed from the CSV string.

Practical Usages of str_getcsv() Function:

The function has many practical usages in many areas. Some includes-

• Parsing from database fields.
• Parsing CSV input from forms.
• Configuration files
• Handling CSV formatted API data.
• Parsing few CSV lines from a file.

Notes on str_getcsv() Function:

• The str_getcsv() function is the string version of the fgetcsv() function. The fgetcsv() function reads from a file that contains numerous CSV strings.
• If your string has multiple lines, you can separate the lines by explode(“\n”) function and then read each line by through a loop. See example below-

  <pre>
  <?php
  $string = '"HTML","CSS","JavaScript"
  "UI","UX","Figma"';
  
  $lines = explode("\n", $string);
  foreach ($lines as $line) {
      $array = str_getcsv($line);
      print_r($array);
  }
  ?>
  </pre>
  

  Output:

  Array
  (
      [0] => HTML
      [1] => CSS
      [2] => JavaScript
  )
  Array
  (
      [0] => UI
      [1] => UX
      [2] => Figma
  )

• The function handles separators inside an enclosure correctly. In the example below, the separator (,) is used in the 3^rd value. And, still, the function doesn’t treat a separator inside an enclosure as a separator.

  <pre>
  <?php
  $csv = '"Number","Type","Array, Nested Array"';
  $result = str_getcsv($csv);
  print_r($result);
  ?>
  </pre>
  

  Output:

  Array
  (
      [0] => Number
      [1] => Type
      [2] => Array, Nested Array
  )

• You can use custom separator. In the example below, “|” is used as a custom separator.

  <pre>
  <?php
  $string = "PHP|MySQL|JavaScript|REACT";
  $result = str_getcsv($string, "|");
  print_r($result);
  ?>
  </pre>
  

  Output:

  Array
  (
      [0] => PHP
      [1] => MySQL
      [2] => JavaScript
      [3] => REACT
  )

• Empty CSV fields become empty strings, not null.
• Make sure that separator, enclosure, and escape characters are single-byte characters.

Caution:

For parsing large CSV file, don’t use str_getcsv() function, instead use fgetcsv() function as it is this function is memory efficient.

Why you choose str_getcsv() over explode() Function:

Though both function divide a string based on a separator, the biggest reason to select str_getcsv() is that inside an enclosure, it doesn’t consider a separator as a separator. So, a value can contain a separator. Check example below-

<pre>
<?php
$string = '"Number","Type","Array, Nested Array"';
$result = str_getcsv($string);
echo "The CSV string is: " . $string . "<br />";
echo "Result in str_getcsv() function-" . "<br />";
print_r($result);
echo "<br />";
echo "Result in explode() function-" . "<br />";
$result = explode(",", $string);
print_r($result);
?>
</pre>

Output:

The CSV string is: "Number","Type","Array, Nested Array"
Result in str_getcsv() function-
Array
(
    [0] => Number
    [1] => Type
    [2] => Array, Nested Array
)
Result in explode() function-
Array
(
    [0] => "Number"
    [1] => "Type"
    [2] => "Array
    [3] =>  Nested Array"
)

Moreover, you can use enclosure, escape characters in str_getcsv() function, but, you can’t getthese benefit in explode function.

PHP Version Support:

PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7, PHP 8

Summary: PHP str_getcsv() Function

The str_getcsv() function is one of the built-in string function in PHP. Use this powerful tool to parse a CSV string into an array.

Reference:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-getcsv.php