How To Convert A CSV File Into An Array In PHP

I had a CSV (comma separated value) file that listed all the suburbs in Australia, along with their postcode, latitude and longitude. I needed it saved in a file as an array for a project I'm doing, but didn't want to have to run multiple regex queries, especially if I needed to use it on other location groups.

How do you convert a csv file into an array in php? Use array_map with str_getcsv to pull the csv file into the array. Then use a foreach loop to iterate over each item, echoing the elements in the format you need.

Let's see how that looks in code:

$csv = array_map('str_getcsv', file('locations.csv'));

echo "array (<br>";
foreach($csv as $location => $data)
{
  echo " array (<br>";
  echo '  "postcode" => "' . $data[1] . '",<br>';
  echo '  "name" => "' . $data[2] . '",<br>';
  echo '  "state_code" => "' . $data[3] . '",<br>';
  echo '  "lat" => "' . $data[4] . '",<br>';
  echo '  "lng" => "' . $data[5] . '"<br>';
  echo " ),<br>";
}
echo ");";

That produced an array that looked like this:

array (
 array (
  "postcode" => "2850",
  "name" => "Aarons Pass",
  "state_code" => "NSW",
  "lat" => "-32.86328",
  "lng" => "149.80375"
 ),
 array (
  "postcode" => "6280",
  "name" => "Abba River",
  "state_code" => "WA",
  "lat" => "-33.68488",
  "lng" => "115.46334"
 ),
 array (
  "postcode" => "6280",
  "name" => "Abbey",
  "state_code" => "WA",
  "lat" => "-33.66077",
  "lng" => "115.25863"
 ),
);

I then copied and pasted the outputted code into my project, added $locations = before it and it was all done.

How Does It Work?

All the magic is in the first line.

$csv = array_map('str_getcsv', file('locations.csv'));

I got that line from the PHP Manual for str_getcsv. You can use it whenever you need to turn a csv file into an array.

The line turns each line of the csv file into a regular array (ie $item[0], $item[1], etc), so you end up with an array of arrays.

Be careful doing this with a file you don't control. It can lead to some pretty serious security risks.

I needed an array of associated arrays, which is why I did the foreach loop.

I also needed it printed out so I could save the whole thing to a file for later use, hence the echoing.

I actually did it slightly different from the code here. I didn't have all the spaces and <br>. I put that in for this tutorial because it creates each associated array on the same line and is harder to read online.