CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is one of the most common data exchange formats. PHP has built-in functions specifically for reading and writing CSV that handle quoting, escaping, and delimiters correctly.
fgetcsv() reads one row at a time from an open file handle.fputcsv() writes an array as a properly escaped CSV row.str_getcsv() parses a CSV string (useful for single lines from APIs).<?php
// Reading a CSV file
$csvPath = '/var/data/users.csv';
$handle = fopen($csvPath, 'r');
if ($handle === false) {
throw new RuntimeException("Cannot open $csvPath");
}
$headers = fgetcsv($handle); // First row = headers
$users = [];
while (($row = fgetcsv($handle)) !== false) {
if (count($row) !== count($headers)) continue; // skip malformed
$users[] = array_combine($headers, $row);
}
fclose($handle);
foreach ($users as $user) {
printf("Name: %s, Email: %s
", $user['name'], $user['email']);
}
// Writing a CSV file
$outputPath = '/var/data/export.csv';
$handle = fopen($outputPath, 'w');
// UTF-8 BOM for Excel compatibility
fwrite($handle, "\xEF\xBB\xBF");
// Write header row
fputcsv($handle, ['ID', 'Name', 'Email', 'Registered']);
// Write data rows
$data = [
[1, 'Alice Smith', 'alice@example.com', '2024-01-15'],
[2, 'Bob O'Brien', 'bob@example.com', '2024-02-20'],
[3, 'Carol Davis', 'carol@example.com', '2024-03-05'],
];
foreach ($data as $row) {
fputcsv($handle, $row);
}
fclose($handle);
// Parse a CSV string
$line = 'John,"Doe, Jr.",john@example.com';
$cols = str_getcsv($line);
print_r($cols); // ['John', 'Doe, Jr.', 'john@example.com']
Tip: When exporting CSV for Microsoft Excel, prepend the UTF-8 BOM (\"\xEF\xBB\xBF\") before the first row. Without it, Excel often misinterprets non-ASCII characters in the default encoding.