Convert CSV to JSON PHP - PHP Tutorial

CSV (Comma Separated Values) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) are two commonly used data formats. CSV is used for storing data in a tabular format where each row represents a record, and each column represents a field. JSON, on the other hand, is a lightweight data-interchange format that is used to represent data as a collection of key-value pairs.

Convert CSV file to JSON in PHP. In this tutorial, you will learn how to convert CSV data or file into a JSON object in PHP.

You should also read the following PHP JSON post:

Sometimes it may be necessary to convert data from CSV format to JSON format. In this guide, we will discuss how to convert CSV to JSON using PHP.

Convert CSV to JSON File using PHP

By using the following steps, you can convert CSV (Comma Separated Values) to JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) in PHP, follow these steps:

Step 1: Create a CSV File
Step 2: Read the CSV File
Step 3: Convert CSV File to JSON File
Step 4: Write Data in JSON file

Step 1: Create a CSV File

Let you have one CSV file and its URL https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTEKCTdbMgSEt7UCymQ956PIYsHei51gpCtPou4VGugKRztJVuZSNuDXKDrdDiZxx6-Ebepte8P6OlG/pub?output=csv. It contains the name, age, email id.

This file looks like below:

Save this file as “abcFile.csv” in the same directory as your PHP script.

Step 2: Read the CSV File

Then, you need to read csv file data. So, You can use the built-in PHP function “fopen” to open the file and “fgetcsv” to read data from the CSV file.

Example:

$fp = fopen('abcFile.csv', 'r');
$headers = fgetcsv($fp); // Get column headers

$data = array();
while (($row = fgetcsv($fp))) {
    $data[] = array_combine($headers, $row);
}
fclose($fp);
print_r($data);

Explanation:

First open the CSV file using the fopen() function with the mode set to 'r' (read).
To read the first row of the CSV file as the header using the fgetcsv() function.
To initialize an empty array to hold the data.
Then loop through the remaining rows of the CSV file using a while loop and add each row to the data array using the array_combine() function to combine the header row with the current row.
Close the CSV file using the fclose() function.

Step 3: Convert CSV File to JSON File

Once you have read CSV data file in php code, now you need to convert it to json data or PHP array. So, you can use the built-in PHP function “json_encode” converts it to JSON format.

// convert array to json php using the json_encode()
$arrayToJson = json_encode($newArray);

// print converted csv value to json
echo $arrayToJson;

In the above given php code, the “$data” array is passed to “json_encode” function with the option “JSON_PRETTY_PRINT” to format the JSON output with indentation and line breaks.

Step 4: Write Data in JSON file

In the final step, you need to write into json file. So for that, you can use the “file_put_contents” function.

$output_filename = 'data.json';
file_put_contents($output_filename, $json);

In the above code, we pass the “$output_filename” and “$json” to the “file_put_contents” function, which writes the data to the file.

Here is the complete code to convert CSV file to JSON file using PHP by writing all the code together:

Example:

<?php

/*
 * Converts CSV File to JSON PHP Script
 * Example uses Google Spreadsheet CSV
*/

header('Content-type: application/json');

//Set your file path here
$filePath = 'https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTEKCTdbMgSEt7UCymQ956PIYsHei51gpCtPou4VGugKRztJVuZSNuDXKDrdDiZxx6-Ebepte8P6OlG/pub?output=csv';

// define two arrays for storing values
$keys = array();
$newArray = array();

//PHP Function to convert CSV into array
function convertCsvToArray($file, $delimiter) { 
  if (($handle = fopen($file, 'r')) !== FALSE) { 
    $i = 0; 
    while (($lineArray = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter, '"')) !== FALSE) { 
      for ($j = 0; $j < count($lineArray); $j++) { 
        $arr[$i][$j] = $lineArray[$j]; 
      } 
      $i++; 
    } 
    fclose($handle); 
  } 
  return $arr; 
} 
// Call the function convert csv To Array
$data = convertCsvToArray($filePath, ',');

// Set number of elements (minus 1 because we shift off the first row)
$count = count($data) - 1;
  
//First row for label or name
$labels = array_shift($data);  
foreach ($labels as $label) {
  $keys[] = $label;
}

// assign keys value to ids, we add new parameter id here
$keys[] = 'id';
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
  $data[$i][] = $i;
}
  
// combine both array
for ($j = 0; $j < $count; $j++) {
  $d = array_combine($keys, $data[$j]);
  $newArray[$j] = $d;
}

// convert array to json php using the json_encode()
$arrayToJson = json_encode($newArray);

// print converted csv value to json
echo $arrayToJson;
?>

Conclusion

In this article, you have learned how to convert CSV files to JSON using PHP.

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Convert CSV to JSON PHP – PHP Tutorial