How to parse csv in PHP having multiline data in a column

Question

Consider s CSV file like this

item1,"description 1" item2,"description 2" item3,"description 3 description 3 continues on new line" item4,"description 4" 

which should be parsed like this

item1,"description 1" item2,"description 2" item3,"description 3 description 3 continues on new line" item4,"description 4" 

Is there a way to parse this CSV in PHP which has multiline values?

Answer 1

Here are some working examples how to do it. I am using fgetcsv:

CSV in string variable $CsvString:

$fp = tmpfile(); fwrite($fp, $CsvString); rewind($fp); //rewind to process CSV while (($row = fgetcsv($fp, 0)) !== FALSE) {     print_r($row); } 

CSV in file:

if (($handle = fopen("test.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {   while (($row = fgetcsv($handle, 0, ",")) !== FALSE) {     print_r($row);   }   fclose($handle); } 

Answer 2

fgetcsv should be able to properly parse this.
I wouldn't recommend doing this by hand anyway, there are many such gotchas in parsing CSV.