str_getcsv into a multidimensional array in php

Question

I have csv values like this:

$csv_data = \"test,this,thing
             hi,there,this
             is,cool,dude
             have,fun\";

I want

Answer 1

Here is a complete solution:

$lines = explode("\n", $csv_data);
$formatting = explode(",", $lines[0]);
unset($lines[0]);
$results = array();
foreach ( $lines as $line ) {
   $parsedLine = str_getcsv( $line, ',' );
   $result = array();
   foreach ( $formatting as $index => $caption ) {
      if(isset($parsedLine[$index])) {
         $result[$formatting[$index]] = trim($parsedLine[$index]);
      } else {
         $result[$formatting[$index]] = '';
      }
   }
   $results[] = $result;
}

So what are we doing here?

• First, your CSV data is split into array of lines with explode
• Since the first row in your CSV describes data format, it must be separated from the actual data rows (explode and unset)
• For storing the results, we initialize a new array ($results)
• Foreach is used to iterate through the data line by line. For each line:
  • Line is parsed with PHP's str_getcsv
  • An empty result array is initialized
  • Each line is inspected in the light of the format. Cells are added and missing columns are padded with empty strings.