Read data from csv file using php

Hi guys,

What I'm trying to achieve here is a web page that will query a csv file and display data from that file. From what I've seen the way forward is using PHP.

After having trawled through Google I'm still unsure, I'm a newbie when it comes to php.

Basically I want to enter the first entry of a row from the csv file (which will be a 3 letter code) into a text box, click a 'submit' button (or press <enter> ) and then I want the web page to display the data from that row in a table or something.

Any help would be appreciated

This can be done in any scripting or programing language. You need some programming skills to accomplish this. If you don't have any, then it is time to learn.

You would have page with the box to enter the value, pass that back to the server which would read one row at a time from your csv file, convert it, at least up the the first 'column' to plain text, and compare that to the entered value. If the value matches, convert the remaining line and pass the new table back, otherwise repeat with the next row. If multiple rows can have repeating key values, then you have to read the entire file and build up your table.

You might find a library that can read in a CVS file and convert the columns to variables to make it easier to deal with. Often the scripting language maintainers have a page for libraries you can search through.

A couple php functions that you might want to look into:

PHP: fgetcsv - Manual
PHP: print_r - Manual

Also your post variables will be found in the $_POST array

I think I'm going to have to learn php fast as I have no idea how to string it all together.

Can anyone help further?

Reading CSV data using PHP is fairly easy. You can use fgetcsv to do this.
Here is one example to read CSV file using PHP.

Hope this helps!

If this CSV doesn't change much (or even if it does for that matter), you might think about moving it into a structured database.

Then running various queries/filters/sorts would be easier and faster, and you can use existing functions for easily handling your data.

So you could either import it manually (in the case where it doesn't change [often]), or use a browse/upload control to select a local file, move it to the server, parse it, drop it into a DB.

In terms of "how", that's probably a larger post than this MB supports

Have fun!