{"id":132530,"date":"2023-03-17T15:52:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T15:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phppot.com\/?p=20589"},"modified":"2023-03-17T15:52:14","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T15:52:14","slug":"convert-php-csv-to-json","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2023\/03\/17\/convert-php-csv-to-json\/","title":{"rendered":"Convert PHP CSV to JSON"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Vincy<\/a>. Last modified on March 17th, 2023.<\/div>\n

JSON format is a widely used format while working with API development. Most of the existing API responses are in JSON format.<\/p>\n

Converting CSV content into a JSON format is simple in PHP. In this article, we will see different methods of achieving this conversion.<\/p>\n

Quick example<\/h2>\n
<?php $csvFileContent= file_get_contents(\"animals.csv\");\n\/\/ Converts the CSV file content into line array $csvLineArray = explode(\"\\n\", $csvFileContent);\n\/\/ Forms row results in an array format\n$result = array_map(\"str_getcsv\", $csvLineArray);\n$jsonObject = json_encode($result);\nprint_r($jsonObject);\n?>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
The above quick example in PHP converts the CSV file content into JSON with few lines of code.<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. First, it reads the .csv file content using the PHP file_get_contents() function.<\/li>\n
  2. It explodes the CSV row by the new line (\\n) escape sequence.<\/li>\n
  3. Then, it iterates the line array and reads the line data of the CSV row.<\/li>\n
  4. Finally, the resultant CSV row array is converted to JSON using the json_encode() function.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    In step 3, the iteration happens with a single line of code. This line maps the array to call  PHP str_getcsv<\/code> to parse and convert the CSV lines into an array.<\/p>\n
    When we saw the methods of reading a CSV file<\/a>, we created an example using str_getcsv<\/code> function.<\/p>\n
    The below input file is saved and used for this PHP example.<\/p>\n
    Input CSV<\/strong><\/p>\n
    Id,Name,Type,Role\n1,Lion,Wild,\"Lazy Boss\"\n2,Tiger,Wild,CEO\n3,Jaguar,Wild,Developer\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    Output JSON<\/strong><\/p>\n
    This PHP quick example displays the below JSON output on the browser.<\/p>\n
    [[\"Id\",\"Name\",\"Type\",\"Role\"],[\"1\",\"Lion\",\"Wild\",\"Lazy Boss\"],[\"2\",\"Tiger\",\"Wild\",\"CEO\"],[\"3\",\"Jaguar\",\"Wild\",\"Developer\"]]\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    In the following sections, we will see two more examples of converting CSV files into JSON.<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. Method 2: Convert CSV (containing header) into a JSON (associating the column=>value pair)<\/li>\n
    2. Method 3: Upload a CSV file and convert it into JSON<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \"upload<\/p>\n
      Method 2: Convert CSV (containing header) into a JSON (associating the column=>value pair)<\/h2>\n
      This example uses a CSV string as its input instead of a file.<\/p>\n
      It creates the header column array by getting the first row of the CSV file.<\/p>\n
      Then, the code iterates the CSV rows from the second row onwards. On each iteration, it associates the header column and the iterated data column.<\/p>\n
      This loop prepares an associative array containing the CSV data.<\/p>\n
      In the final step, the json_encode() function converts the associative array and writes it into an output JSON file.<\/p>\n
      <?php\n$csvString = \"Id,Name,Type,Role\n1,Lion,Wild,Boss\n2,Tiger,Wild,CEO\n3,Jaguar,Wild,Developer\"; $lineContent = array_map(\"str_getcsv\", explode(\"\\n\", $csvString)); $headers = $lineContent[0];\n$jsonArray = array();\n$rowCount = count($lineContent);\nfor ($i=1;$i<$rowCount;$i++) { foreach ($lineContent[$i] as $key => $column) { $jsonArray[$i][$headers[$key]] = $column; }\n} header('Content-type: application\/json; charset=UTF-8');\n$fp = fopen('animals.json', 'w');\nfwrite($fp, json_encode($jsonArray, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT));\nfclose($fp);\n?>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
      Output \u2013 The animal.json file<\/h3>\n
      This is the output written to the animal.json file via this PHP program.<\/p>\n
      { \"1\": { \"Id\": \"1\", \"Name\": \"Lion\", \"Type\": \"Wild\", \"Role\": \"Boss\" }, \"2\": { \"Id\": \"2\", \"Name\": \"Tiger\", \"Type\": \"Wild\", \"Role\": \"CEO\" }, \"3\": { \"Id\": \"3\", \"Name\": \"Jaguar\", \"Type\": \"Wild\", \"Role\": \"Developer\" }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
      Method 3: Upload a CSV file and convert it into JSON<\/h2>\n
      Instead of using a fixed CSV input assigned to a program, this code allows users to choose the CSV file.<\/p>\n
      This code shows an HTML form with a file input to upload<\/a> the input CSV file.<\/p>\n
      Once uploaded, the PHP script will read the CSV file content, prepare the array, and form the JSON output.<\/p>\n
      In a previous tutorial, we have seen how to convert a CSV into a PHP array<\/a>.<\/p>\n
      upload-and-convert-csv-to-json.php<\/p>\n
      <?php\nif (isset($_POST[\"convert\"])) { if ($_FILES['csv_file_input']['name']) { if ($_FILES['csv_file_input'][\"type\"] == 'text\/csv') { $jsonOutput = array(); $csvFileContent = file_get_contents($_FILES['csv_file_input']['tmp_name']); $result = array_map(\"str_getcsv\", explode(\"\\n\", $csvFileContent)); $header = $result[0]; $recordCount = count($result); for ($i = 1; $i < $recordCount; $i++) { \/\/ Associates the data with the string index in the header array $data = array_combine($header, $result[$i]); $jsonOutput[$i] = $data; } header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename=output.json'); header('Content-type: application\/json'); echo json_encode($jsonOutput); exit(); } else { $error = 'Invalid CSV uploaded'; } } else { $error = 'Invalid CSV uploaded'; }\n}\n?>\n<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html> <head> <title>Convert CSV to JSON<\/title> <style> body { font-family: arial; } input[type=\"file\"] { padding: 5px 10px; margin: 30px 0px; border: #666 1px solid; border-radius: 3px; } input[type=\"submit\"] { padding: 8px 20px; border: #232323 1px solid; border-radius: 3px; background: #232323; color: #FFF; } .validation-message { color: #e20900; } <\/style>\n<\/head>\n<body> <form name=\"frmUpload\" method=\"post\" enctype=\"multipart\/form-data\"> <input type=\"file\" name=\"csv_file_input\" accept=\".csv\" \/> <input type=\"submit\" name=\"convert\" value=\"Convert\"> <?php if (!empty($error)) { ?> <span class=\"validation-message\"><?php echo $error; ?><\/span> <?php } ?> <\/form>\n<\/body>\n<\/html>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
      Output:<\/strong><\/p>\n
      This program writes the output JSON into a file and downloads it automatically to the browser.<\/p>\n
      Note: Both methods 2 and 3 require CSV input with a header column row to get good results.
      \"output
      Download<\/a><\/p>\n
        <\/p>\n
      \n
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      by Vincy. Last modified on March 17th, 2023. JSON format is a widely used format while working with API development. Most of the existing API responses are in JSON format. Converting CSV content into a JSON format is simple in PHP. In this article, we will see different methods of achieving this conversion. Quick example […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-php-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}