PHP - Best approach to detect CSV delimiter

Question

I have seen multiple threads about what the best solution to auto detect the delimiter for an incoming CSV. Most of them are functions of length between 20 - 30 lines, multiple loops pre-determined list of delimiters, reading the first 5 lines and matching counts e.t.c e.t.c

Here is 1 example

I have just implemented this procedure, with a few modifications. Works brilliantly.

THEN I found the following code:

private function DetectDelimiter($fh)
{
    $data_1 = null;
    $data_2 = null;
    $delimiter = self::$delim_list['comma'];
    foreach(self::$delim_list as $key=>$value)
    {
        $data_1 = fgetcsv($fh, 4096, $value);
        $delimiter = sizeof($data_1) > sizeof($data_2) ? $key : $delimiter;
        $data_2 = $data_1;
    }

    $this->SetDelimiter($delimiter);
    return $delimiter;
}

This to me looks like it's achieving the SAME results, where $delim_list is an array of delimiters as follows:

static protected $delim_list = array('tab'=>"\t", 
                                     'semicolon'=>";", 
                                     'pipe'=>"|", 
                                     'comma'=>",");

Can anyone shed any light as to why I shouldn't do it this simpler way, and why everywhere I look the more convoluted solution seems to be the accepted answer?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This function is elegant :)

/**
* @param string $csvFile Path to the CSV file
* @return string Delimiter
*/
public function detectDelimiter($csvFile)
{
    $delimiters = [";" => 0, "," => 0, "\t" => 0, "|" => 0];

    $handle = fopen($csvFile, "r");
    $firstLine = fgets($handle);
    fclose($handle); 
    foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter => &$count) {
        $count = count(str_getcsv($firstLine, $delimiter));
    }

    return array_search(max($delimiters), $delimiters);
}

Answer 2

Fixed version.

In your code, if a string has more than 1 delimiter you'll get a wrong result (example: val; string, with comma;val2;val3). Also if a file has 1 row (count of rows < count of delimiters).

Here is a fixed variant:

private function detectDelimiter($fh)
{
    $delimiters = ["\t", ";", "|", ","];
    $data_1 = null; $data_2 = null;
    $delimiter = $delimiters[0];
    foreach($delimiters as $d) {
        $data_1 = fgetcsv($fh, 4096, $d);
        if(sizeof($data_1) > sizeof($data_2)) {
            $delimiter = $d;
            $data_2 = $data_1;
        }
        rewind($fh);
    }

    return $delimiter;
}

Answer 3

None of these worked for my use case. So I made some slight modifications.

   /**
    * @param string $filePath
    * @param int $checkLines
    * @return string
    */
   public function getCsvDelimiter(string $filePath, int $checkLines = 3): string
   {
      $delimiters =[",", ";", "\t"];

      $default =",";

       $fileObject = new \SplFileObject($filePath);
       $results = [];
       $counter = 0;
       while ($fileObject->valid() && $counter <= $checkLines) {
           $line = $fileObject->fgets();
           foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter) {
               $fields = explode($delimiter, $line);
               $totalFields = count($fields);
               if ($totalFields > 1) {
                   if (!empty($results[$delimiter])) {
                       $results[$delimiter] += $totalFields;
                   } else {
                       $results[$delimiter] = $totalFields;
                   }
               }
           }
           $counter++;
       }
       if (!empty($results)) {
           $results = array_keys($results, max($results));

           return $results[0];
       }
return $default;
}