explode csv file on delimiter (;) and delimiter(,)?

Question

when I explode csv file on delimiter (;) the explode successfully in some excel program and failed in others

also when I explode csv file on delimiter (,) the explode successfully in some excel program and failed in others

How can I do explode in all versions of excel? How can I know the perfect delimiter to explode?

yes there is code..

if (!function_exists('create_csv')) {
    function create_csv($query, &$filename = false, $old_csv = false) {
        if(!$filename) $filename = "data_export_".date("Y-m-d").".csv";
        $ci = &get_instance();
        $ci->load->helper('download');
        $ci->load->dbutil();
        $delimiter = ";";
        $newline = "\r\n";
        $csv = "Data:".date("Y-m-d").$newline;
        if($old_csv)
            $csv .= $old_csv;
        else
            $csv .= $ci->dbutil->csv_from_result($query, $delimiter, $newline);
        $columns = explode($newline, $csv);
        $titles = explode($delimiter, $columns[1]);
        $new_titles = array();
        foreach ($titles as $item) {
            array_push($new_titles, lang(trim($item,'"')));
        }
        $columns[1] = implode($delimiter, $new_titles);
        $csv = implode($newline, $columns);
        return $csv;
    }
}

sometimes I put $delimiter = ";"; and sometims $delimiter = ",";

thanks..

Answer 1

You can use helper function to detect best delimiter like:

public function find_delimiter($csv)
{
    $delimiters = array(',', '.', ';');
    $bestDelimiter = false;
    $count = 0;
    foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter)
        if (substr_count($csv, $delimiter) > $count) {
            $count = substr_count($csv, $delimiter);
            $bestDelimiter = $delimiter;
        }
    return $bestDelimiter;
}

Answer 2

If you have an idea of the expected data (number of columns) then this might work as a good guess, and could be a good alternative to comparing which occurs the most (depending on what kind of data you're expecting). It would work even better if you have a header record, I'd imagine. (You could put in a check for specific header values)

Sorry for not fitting it into your code, but I am not really sure what those calls you are making do, but you should be able to fit it around.

$expected_num_of_columns = 10;
$delimiter = "";

foreach (array(",", ";") as $test_delimiter) {
   $fid = fopen ($filename, "r");
   $csv_row = fgetcsv($fid, 0, $test_delimiter);
   if (count($csv_row) == $expected_num_of_columns) {
       $delimiter = $test_delimiter;
       break;
   }
   fclose($fid);
}

if (empty($delimiter)) {
   die ("Input file did not contain the correct number of fields (" . $expected_num_of_columns . ")");  
}

Don't use this if, for example, all or most of the fields contain non-integer numbers (e.g. a list of monetary amounts) and has no header record, because files separated by ; are most likely to use , as the decimal point and there could be the same number of commas and semi-colons.