From CSV to array with headerkeys, now back to CSV

Question

Our Story: (short version below if you're eager to troubleshoot)

This question is asked after extensively searching for a way to get a multidimensional array (with named keys) back into it's CSV file. You might say: "But this is covered on multiple pages on SO, search better!" but we did, and the results we found we have tried to bend to our will, but failed.

The reason for this in the first place was to remove columns from the CSV that were interfering with the rest of our Query's and Code.

So now we're back to ask on SO:

We've read the CSV into a multidimensional Array, using the headers' 1st line as key names.

We then used unset($array[$i]['insert_date']); to remove the columns from the array

We also str_replace'd those columns names from our $header variable.

So we're extensively reading out csv's, putting them in awesome Arrays that have a numerical first index, and second dimension keys named after the first line of our CSV file.

We also have the original Header from CSV file stored in a variable handsomely called $header with a string like: '"brand";"category";"category_path"

So.. $header is a string, $array is our multidimensional array.

All we want to do, and we're stuck editing loop after loop, is to create a brand new File, that has our $header as the first line, and our $array's values as strings..

file to write to: $putfile = fopen("feeds/broken/lu-zz.csv", "rw");

we're using: fputcsv($file, $array,';','"'); to write

and preferably: \n line endings

In short:

from this:

array (size=3886)
  0 => 
    array (size=19)
      'brand' => string 'Tommy Hilfiger' (length=14)
      'category' => string '' (length=0)
      'category_path' => string 'Heren|Jeans|Blue jeans' (length=22)

  1 => 
    array (size=19)
      'brand' => string 'Marc Aurel' (length=10)
      'category' => string '' (length=0)
      'category_path' => string 'Dames|Jurken|Zomerjurken' (length=24)

  2 => 
    array (size=19)
      'brand' => string 'Rinascimento' (length=12)
      'category' => string '' (length=0)
      'category_path' => string 'Dames|Jurken|Print jurken' (length=25)

To This

"brand";"category";"category_path"
"Tommy Hilfiger";"";"Heren|Jeans|Blue jeans"  (/n)
"Marc Aurel";"";"Dames|Jurken|Zomerjurken"  (/n)
"Rinascimento";"";"Dames|Jurken|Print jurken"  (/n)

Last piece of code we tried:

{ 
    foreach($subarray as $value){
        for ($i=0, $m=count($value); $i<$m; $i++){ 
          //$test = implode('";"',$subarray) ; 
          //$tmp = array();
          $result = call_user_func_array('array_merge', $subarray);
          //$tmp[]= array_merge($subsub[$i]);
          var_dump($result);
          fputcsv($putfile, $subarray,';','"'); 

        }

    } 
}  fclose($putfile);

This just returns the same value over and over again into an array:

foreach ($array as $subarray) { 
    foreach($subarray as $value){
        for ($i=0, $m=count($value); $i<$m; $i++){ 
          //$test = implode('";"',$subarray) ; 
          //$tmp = array();

          print_r($subarray);
          fputcsv($putfile, $subarray,';','"'); 

        }

    } 
}  fclose($putfile);

Solution in our case: Thanks to "Don't Panic" & "CBroe".

$putfile = fopen("feeds/stukkefeeds/lu-zz.csv", "wb");
$header = str_replace('"','',$header1);
$titel = explode(';',$header);
var_dump($titel);
// then write in your data
    fputcsv($putfile, $titel,';','"');
foreach ($array as $line) {
    fputcsv($putfile, $line,';','"'); 
}

Answer 1

It looks like you may be making it more complicated than it needs to be. If you have an $array that is the one you've shown that looks like:

array (size=3886)
  0 => 
    array (size=19)
      'brand' => string 'Tommy Hilfiger' (length=14)
      'category' => string '' (length=0)
      'category_path' => string 'Heren|Jeans|Blue jeans' (length=22)
...

And you have a working file handle that you've opened with

$putfile = fopen("feeds/broken/lu-zz.csv", "w");

You shouldn't need a nested loop at all. You can get the header line by using array_keys on the first item in the array (or any item, really), write it to the file with fputcsv, and then loop over the array and write each line of data, also with fputcsv.

$first_line = reset($array);                 // get the first line
fputcsv($putfile, array_keys($first_line));  // use its keys to write the headers

// then write in your data
foreach ($array as $line) {
    fputcsv($putfile, $line,';','"'); 
}