README

A lightweight, zero-dependency PHP library for reading, writing, and exporting CSV files. Works with PHP 5.4 and above.

Features

🚀 Simple and intuitive API
📖 Memory-efficient reading of large files
💾 Export data to CSV files
⬇️ Direct CSV downloads
🔒 Secure file handling
0️⃣ Zero dependencies
✅ PHP 5.4+ compatible

Installation

Install via Composer:

composer require belguinan/csv-simple-reader

Quick Start

use Belguinan\CsvExporter;

// Initialize
$csv = new CsvExporter();

// Read CSV file
foreach ($csv->readFrom('path/to/file.csv') as $row) {
    var_dump($row);
}

Usage Guide

Reading CSV Files

$csv = new CsvExporter();

// Read file line by line (memory efficient)
foreach ($csv->readFrom('input.csv') as $row) {
    // $row is an array containing the CSV columns
    var_dump($row);
}

Creating CSV Files

// Your data as array
$data = array(
    array('John', 'Doe', 'john@example.com'),
    array('Jane', 'Smith', 'jane@example.com')
);

// Optional headers
$headers = array('First Name', 'Last Name', 'Email');

// Create CSV exporter
$csv = new CsvExporter($data, $headers);

// Process and save
$csv->process()->save('output.csv');

Downloading CSV Files

// Create and force download
$csv = new CsvExporter($data, $headers);
$csv->process()->download('users-export');

Chaining Operations

// Process, download, and save in one go
$csv->process()
    ->download('export-file')
    ->save('backup/export.csv');

Error Handling

The library throws Exception for various error conditions. It's recommended to wrap operations in try-catch blocks:

try {
    $csv = new CsvExporter($data);
    $csv->process()->save('output.csv');
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    echo "Error: " . $e->getMessage();
}

Common Exceptions

File not found
File not readable
Directory not writable
Invalid CSV data structure
Memory stream errors

Best Practices

Reading Large Files

// Good - Memory efficient
foreach ($csv->readFrom('large.csv') as $row) {
    processRow($row);
}

Setting Headers

// Explicit headers
$headers = array('ID', 'Name', 'Email');
$csv = new CsvExporter($data, $headers);

// Auto-generated headers from data keys
$csv = new CsvExporter($data);

Error Handling

try {
    $csv->readFrom('file.csv');
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    log_error($e->getMessage());
    // Handle error appropriately
}

Examples

Export Users Table

// Fetch users from database
$users = $db->query('SELECT id, name, email FROM users');

// Convert to array
$data = array();
while ($row = $users->fetch_assoc()) {
    $data[] = $row;
}

// Export
$csv = new CsvExporter($data);
$csv->process()->download('users-export');

Process CSV in Chunks

$csv = new CsvExporter();
$chunk = array();

foreach ($csv->readFrom('large-file.csv') as $index => $row) {
    $chunk[] = $row;
    
    // Process in chunks of 1000
    if (count($chunk) >= 1000) {
        processChunk($chunk);
        $chunk = array();
    }
}

// Process remaining rows
if (!empty($chunk)) {
    processChunk($chunk);
}

License

MIT License - feel free to use this library in your projects.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Support

For bugs and feature requests, please use the GitHub issue tracker.

belguinan / csv-simple-reader

Maintainers

Details