PHP 8.4.0 RC4 available for testing

fputcsv

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

fputcsvFormat line as CSV and write to file pointer

Description

fputcsv(
    resource $stream,
    array $fields,
    string $separator = ",",
    string $enclosure = "\"",
    string $escape = "\\",
    string $eol = "\n"
): int|false

fputcsv() formats a line (passed as a fields array) as CSV and writes it (terminated by a newline) to the specified file stream.

Parameters

stream

The file pointer must be valid, and must point to a file successfully opened by fopen() or fsockopen() (and not yet closed by fclose()).

fields

An array of strings.

separator

The optional separator parameter sets the field delimiter (one single-byte character only).

enclosure

The optional enclosure parameter sets the field enclosure (one single-byte character only).

escape

The optional escape parameter sets the escape character (at most one single-byte character). An empty string ("") disables the proprietary escape mechanism.

eol

The optional eol parameter sets a custom End of Line sequence.

Warning

When escape is set to anything other than an empty string ("") it can result in CSV that is not compliant with » RFC 4180 or unable to survive a roundtrip through the PHP CSV functions. The default for escape is "\\" so it is recommended to set it to the empty string explicitly. The default value will change in a future version of PHP, no earlier than PHP 9.0.

Note:

If an enclosure character is contained in a field, it will be escaped by doubling it, unless it is immediately preceded by an escape.

Return Values

Returns the length of the written string or false on failure.

Changelog

Version Description
8.1.0 The optional eol parameter has been added.
7.4.0 The escape parameter now also accepts an empty string to disable the proprietary escape mechanism.

Examples

Example #1 fputcsv() example

<?php

$list
= array (
array(
'aaa', 'bbb', 'ccc', 'dddd'),
array(
'123', '456', '789'),
array(
'"aaa"', '"bbb"')
);

$fp = fopen('file.csv', 'w');

foreach (
$list as $fields) {
fputcsv($fp, $fields);
}

fclose($fp);
?>

The above example will write the following to file.csv:

aaa,bbb,ccc,dddd
123,456,789
"""aaa""","""bbb"""

Notes

Note: If PHP is not properly recognizing the line endings when reading files either on or created by a Macintosh computer, enabling the auto_detect_line_endings run-time configuration option may help resolve the problem.

See Also

  • fgetcsv() - Gets line from file pointer and parse for CSV fields

add a note

User Contributed Notes 25 notes

up
339
MagicalTux at ooKoo dot org
17 years ago
If you need to send a CSV file directly to the browser, without writing in an external file, you can open the output and use fputcsv on it..

<?php
$out
= fopen('php://output', 'w');
fputcsv($out, array('this','is some', 'csv "stuff", you know.'));
fclose($out);
?>
up
64
bl at mindbench dot nl
17 years ago
If you need to save the output to a variable (e.g. for use within a framework) you can write to a temporary memory-wrapper and retrieve it's contents:

<?php
// output up to 5MB is kept in memory, if it becomes bigger it will automatically be written to a temporary file
$csv = fopen('php://temp/maxmemory:'. (5*1024*1024), 'r+');

fputcsv($csv, array('blah','blah'));

rewind($csv);

// put it all in a variable
$output = stream_get_contents($csv);
?>
up
46
mikhail dot galanin at yahoo dot com
6 years ago
Sometimes it's useful to get CSV line as string. I.e. to store it somewhere, not in on a filesystem.

<?php
function csvstr(array $fields) : string
{
$f = fopen('php://memory', 'r+');
if (
fputcsv($f, $fields) === false) {
return
false;
}
rewind($f);
$csv_line = stream_get_contents($f);
return
rtrim($csv_line);
}
?>
up
79
Anonymous
9 years ago
if you want make UTF-8 file for excel, use this:

$fp = fopen($filename, 'w');
//add BOM to fix UTF-8 in Excel
fputs($fp, $bom =( chr(0xEF) . chr(0xBB) . chr(0xBF) ));
up
34
reinhold dot egenter at gmail dot com
4 years ago
Please note, that fputcsv ist not always enclosing strings with the enclosure character.

<?php
$fh
= fopen('file.csv', 'w');

$a = [ 'One 1', 'Two', 'Three 3' ];

fputcsv($fh, $a, "\t");

fclose($fh);
?>

results in a file containing the line:
"One 1" Two "Three 3"

It seems that only strings containing at least one of the following characters are enclosed:

- the delimiter character
- the enclosure character
- the escape character
- \n (new line)
- \r (line feed)
- \t (tab)
- blank

I hope this saves you the hour it took me to get to the bottom of this behaviour.
up
1
php at richardneill dot org
9 months ago
For maximum compatibility with standard (RFC-4180) CSV files, remember that the proprietary-escape mechanism should be disabled. i.e. set the optional 5th parameter to "" (the empty string).
up
1
johannes dot kingma at gmail dot com
3 years ago
In all those cases you need a bug free csv writer with custom record seperating capability:

<?php
/**
* Custom fputcsv
* @param int $handle filehandle
* @param mixed[] $fields array of values to write
* @param string $delimiter field delimiter
* @param string $enclosure field enclosures
* @param string $escape_char escape enclosure chars in fields
* @param string $record_seperator
* @return int characters written
*/
function _fputcsv($handle, $fields, $delimiter = ",", $enclosure = '"', $escape_char = "\\", $record_seperator = "\r\n")
{
$result = [];
foreach (
$fields as $field) {
$result[] = $enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $escape_char . $enclosure, $field) . $enclosure;
}
return
fwrite($handle, implode($delimiter, $result) . $record_seperator);
}
?>
up
41
alex /-\-l- windeagle DOT org
15 years ago
TAB delimiting.

Using fputcsv to output a CSV with a tab delimiter is a little tricky since the delimiter field only takes one character.
The answer is to use the chr() function. The ascii code for tab is 9, so chr(9) returns a tab character.

<?php
fputcsv
($fp, $foo, '\t'); //won't work
fputcsv($fp, $foo, ' '); //won't work

fputcsv($fp, $foo, chr(9)); //works
?>

==================

it should be:
<?php
fputcsv
($fp, $foo, "\t");
?>
you just forgot that single quotes are literal...meaning whatever you put there that's what will come out so '\t' would be same as 't' because \ in that case would be only used for escaping but if you use double quotes then that would work.
up
12
Biniam Nigusse
8 years ago
the solution for how to solve the encoding problem while converting an array to csv file is below.

$fp = fopen('php://memory', 'w');
//add BOM to fix UTF-8 in Excel
fputs($fp, $bom =( chr(0xEF) . chr(0xBB) . chr(0xBF) ));
// output the column headings
//fputcsv($fp, array('Topic', 'Title', 'URL', 'Keywords', 'Score', 'FB_count', 'TW_count', '|'));
if(isset($trend)){
foreach ( $trend as $myField ){
fputcsv($fp, $myField, '|');
}
}
up
23
jamie at agentdesign dot co dot uk
13 years ago
Utility function to output a mysql query to csv with the option to write to file or send back to the browser as a csv attachment.

<?php
function query_to_csv($db_conn, $query, $filename, $attachment = false, $headers = true) {

if(
$attachment) {
// send response headers to the browser
header( 'Content-Type: text/csv' );
header( 'Content-Disposition: attachment;filename='.$filename);
$fp = fopen('php://output', 'w');
} else {
$fp = fopen($filename, 'w');
}

$result = mysql_query($query, $db_conn) or die( mysql_error( $db_conn ) );

if(
$headers) {
// output header row (if at least one row exists)
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
if(
$row) {
fputcsv($fp, array_keys($row));
// reset pointer back to beginning
mysql_data_seek($result, 0);
}
}

while(
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
fputcsv($fp, $row);
}

fclose($fp);
}

// Using the function
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table";
// $db_conn should be a valid db handle

// output as an attachment
query_to_csv($db_conn, $sql, "test.csv", true);

// output to file system
query_to_csv($db_conn, $sql, "test.csv", false);
?>
up
10
soapergem at gmail dot com
15 years ago
I've created a function for quickly generating CSV files that work with Microsoft applications. In the field I learned a few things about generating CSVs that are not always obvious. First, since PHP is generally *nix-based, it makes sense that the line endings are always \n instead of \r\n. However, certain Microsoft programs (I'm looking at you, Access 97), will fail to recognize the CSV properly unless each line ends with \r\n. So this function changes the line endings accordingly. Secondly, if the first column heading / value of the CSV file begins with uppercase ID, certain Microsoft programs (ahem, Excel 2007) will interpret the file as being in the SYLK format rather than CSV, as described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323626

This function accommodates for that as well, by forcibly enclosing that first value in quotes (when this doesn't occur automatically). It would be fairly simple to modify this function to use another delimiter if need be and I leave that as an exercise to the reader. So quite simply, this function is used for outputting CSV data to a CSV file in a way that is safe for use with Windows applications. It takes two parameters + one optional parameter: the location of where the file should be saved, an array of data rows, and an optional array of column headings. (Technically you could omit the headings array and just include it as the first row of the data, but it is often useful to keep this data stored in different arrays in practice.)

<?php

function mssafe_csv($filepath, $data, $header = array())
{
if (
$fp = fopen($filepath, 'w') ) {
$show_header = true;
if ( empty(
$header) ) {
$show_header = false;
reset($data);
$line = current($data);
if ( !empty(
$line) ) {
reset($line);
$first = current($line);
if (
substr($first, 0, 2) == 'ID' && !preg_match('/["\\s,]/', $first) ) {
array_shift($data);
array_shift($line);
if ( empty(
$line) ) {
fwrite($fp, "\"{$first}\"\r\n");
} else {
fwrite($fp, "\"{$first}\",");
fputcsv($fp, $line);
fseek($fp, -1, SEEK_CUR);
fwrite($fp, "\r\n");
}
}
}
} else {
reset($header);
$first = current($header);
if (
substr($first, 0, 2) == 'ID' && !preg_match('/["\\s,]/', $first) ) {
array_shift($header);
if ( empty(
$header) ) {
$show_header = false;
fwrite($fp, "\"{$first}\"\r\n");
} else {
fwrite($fp, "\"{$first}\",");
}
}
}
if (
$show_header ) {
fputcsv($fp, $header);
fseek($fp, -1, SEEK_CUR);
fwrite($fp, "\r\n");
}
foreach (
$data as $line ) {
fputcsv($fp, $line);
fseek($fp, -1, SEEK_CUR);
fwrite($fp, "\r\n");
}
fclose($fp);
} else {
return
false;
}
return
true;
}

?>
up
13
nate at example dot com
15 years ago
Alright, after playing a while, I'm confident the following replacement function works in all cases, including the ones for which the native fputcsv function fails. If fputcsv fails to work for you (particularly with mysql csv imports), try this function as a drop-in replacement instead.

Arguments to pass in are exactly the same as for fputcsv, though I have added an additional $mysql_null boolean which allows one to turn php null's into mysql-insertable nulls (by default, this add-on is disabled, thus working identically to fputcsv [except this one works!]).

<?php

function fputcsv2 ($fh, array $fields, $delimiter = ',', $enclosure = '"', $mysql_null = false) {
$delimiter_esc = preg_quote($delimiter, '/');
$enclosure_esc = preg_quote($enclosure, '/');

$output = array();
foreach (
$fields as $field) {
if (
$field === null && $mysql_null) {
$output[] = 'NULL';
continue;
}

$output[] = preg_match("/(?:${delimiter_esc}|${enclosure_esc}|\s)/", $field) ? (
$enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $enclosure . $enclosure, $field) . $enclosure
) : $field;
}

fwrite($fh, join($delimiter, $output) . "\n");
}

// the _EXACT_ LOAD DATA INFILE command to use
// (if you pass in something different for $delimiter
// and/or $enclosure above, change them here too;
// but _LEAVE ESCAPED BY EMPTY!_).
/*
LOAD DATA INFILE
'/path/to/file.csv'

INTO TABLE
my_table

FIELDS TERMINATED BY
','

OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY
'"'

ESCAPED BY
''

LINES TERMINATED BY
'\n'
*/

?>
up
10
ifunk
17 years ago
I converted this from the PHP source code. This replicates PHP5 functionality exactly, whereas the other examples here do not.

<?php

if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) {

function
fputcsv(&$handle, $fields = array(), $delimiter = ',', $enclosure = '"') {
$str = '';
$escape_char = '\\';
foreach (
$fields as $value) {
if (
strpos($value, $delimiter) !== false ||
strpos($value, $enclosure) !== false ||
strpos($value, "\n") !== false ||
strpos($value, "\r") !== false ||
strpos($value, "\t") !== false ||
strpos($value, ' ') !== false) {
$str2 = $enclosure;
$escaped = 0;
$len = strlen($value);
for (
$i=0;$i<$len;$i++) {
if (
$value[$i] == $escape_char) {
$escaped = 1;
} else if (!
$escaped && $value[$i] == $enclosure) {
$str2 .= $enclosure;
} else {
$escaped = 0;
}
$str2 .= $value[$i];
}
$str2 .= $enclosure;
$str .= $str2.$delimiter;
} else {
$str .= $value.$delimiter;
}
}
$str = substr($str,0,-1);
$str .= "\n";
return
fwrite($handle, $str);
}

}

?>
up
1
perske at muenster dot de
7 years ago
To produce RFC 4180 conforming output, do not use fputcsv but encode manually, like this:

function rfccsv($arr){
foreach($arr as &$a){
$a=strval($a);
if(strcspn($a,",\"\r\n")<strlen($a))$a='"'.strtr($a,array('"'=>'""')).'"';
}
return implode(',',$arr);
}
echo rfccsv(array(.....))."\n";
up
1
julian at polygon dot red
4 years ago
If you do not want to enclose strings (because you're managing that yourself or your content is already enclosed?), note that you cannot pass an empty enclosure to fputcsv. The function requires one character for that parameter. chr(0) works well:

fputcsv($handle, $fields, ",", chr(0));
up
2
drew at zitnay dot com
19 years ago
[EDIT BY danbrown AT php DOT net: This is a revised function with a few bugfixes and improvements done by this author. The original function example was written by arthur AT mclean DOT ws, and rewritten between by arthur AT korn DOT ch.]

- when calling str_replace(), you must assign $cell the return value or nothing gets saved

- when using strchr(), you should explicitly check !== FALSE, or it'll treat a return value of 0 (found the character at string position 0) as FALSE

- Excel seems to quote not only fields containing commas, but fields containing quotes as well, so I've added another strchr() for quotes; I'm not saying Microsoft knows the correct way for sure, but it seems reasonable to me

- the original function put a space after each comma; that might be legal, I don't know, but I've never seen it (and I don't think it is, because then how would you indicate you wanted a field to start with a space other than by quoting it?)

- the original function didn't correctly return the length of the data outputted

Here's the function, fixed up a bit:

<?php
function fputcsv($handle, $row, $fd=',', $quot='"')
{
$str='';
foreach (
$row as $cell) {
$cell=str_replace(Array($quot, "\n"),
Array(
$quot.$quot, ''),
$cell);
if (
strchr($cell, $fd)!==FALSE || strchr($cell, $quot)!==FALSE) {
$str.=$quot.$cell.$quot.$fd;
} else {
$str.=$cell.$fd;
}
}

fputs($handle, substr($str, 0, -1)."\n");

return
strlen($str);
}
?>

Drew
up
2
simeonl at dbc dot co dot nz
14 years ago
In general I found myself wanting to get the result as a string rather than writing it to a file, and in particular I wanted to produce a CSV using an EOL that might not be the same as that on the server where I generated it. This is how I solved the problem without rewriting fputcsv.

<?php
function sputcsv($row, $delimiter = ',', $enclosure = '"', $eol = "\n")
{
static
$fp = false;
if (
$fp === false)
{
$fp = fopen('php://temp', 'r+'); // see http://php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php.php - yes there are 2 '.php's on the end.
// NB: anything you read/write to/from 'php://temp' is specific to this filehandle
}
else
{
rewind($fp);
}

if (
fputcsv($fp, $row, $delimiter, $enclosure) === false)
{
return
false;
}

rewind($fp);
$csv = fgets($fp);

if (
$eol != PHP_EOL)
{
$csv = substr($csv, 0, (0 - strlen(PHP_EOL))) . $eol;
}

return
$csv;
}

// test
$rows = array
(
array(
'blue, sky', 'green, lime', 'red', 'black'),
array(
'white', 'gold', 'purple, imperial', 'grey, slate'),
array(
'orange, burnt', 'pink, hot', 'violet', 'indigo'),
);

if (
PHP_EOL == "\r\n")
{
$eol = "\n";
}
else
{
$eol = "\r\n";
}

foreach(
$rows as $row)
{
echo
nl2br(sputcsv($row, ',', '"', $eol));
}
?>

The test should produce something like the following:

"blue, sky","green, lime",red,black
white,gold,"purple, imperial","grey, slate"
"orange, burnt","pink, hot",violet,indigo
up
1
mike at fatica dot net
10 years ago
We had a function that wrote a single line CSV. I noticed that with enabling auto_detect_line_endings, fputcsv would not write a newline at the end of the file.

Enabling auto_detect_line_endings changed the fputcsv behavior to include a newline.
up
2
encode
2 years ago
Regarding Excel and UTF-16LE encoding

For complete Excel compatibility (umlauts, cyrillic, chinese alphabet etc.) one needs to encode their .csv to UTF-16LE, use tabulators (\t) as the separator and include a UTF-16LE BOM at the start of the file.

This however can not be done by simply encoding the input for putcsv, since separators and enclosure characters will still be written in the default encoding, and fputcsv will not accept utf-16 encoded separator/enclosure characters.

The simple solution is to roll your own implementation of fputcsv with escaping etc., or possibly to encode the generated .csv file after the fact.
up
0
alanzhang717 at gmail dot com
10 years ago
When you output csv by fputcsv, if there are any Chinese character, you may get messy code. Then you need to set the encoding properly:

fprintf($fp, chr(0xEF).chr(0xBB).chr(0xBF)); // just add this line
fputcsv($fp, ...);
up
0
R dot Mansveld at Spider-IT dot de
11 years ago
Inspired by boonerunner's function, I wrote a smaller, faster, and more flexible one, which also uses less memory.
I also renamed it to avoid collision or overwriting the PHP function, and gave the 3rd and 4th parameter default values like fputcsv() uses.

This function puts all text values in $enclosure's while doubling the $enclosure in the value, and leaves numeric values as they are.
But if the $delimiter exists in the numeric value, this value will also be put in $enclosure's (may happen if you use a dot as the $delimiter).

function fwritecsv($handle, $fields, $delimiter = ',', $enclosure = '"') {
# Check if $fields is an array
if (!is_array($fields)) {
return false;
}
# Walk through the data array
for ($i = 0, $n = count($fields); $i < $n; $i ++) {
# Only 'correct' non-numeric values
if (!is_numeric($fields[$i])) {
# Duplicate in-value $enclusure's and put the value in $enclosure's
$fields[$i] = $enclosure . str_replace($enclosure, $enclosure . $enclosure, $fields[$i]) . $enclosure;
}
# If $delimiter is a dot (.), also correct numeric values
if (($delimiter == '.') && (is_numeric($fields[$i]))) {
# Put the value in $enclosure's
$fields[$i] = $enclosure . $fields[$i] . $enclosure;
}
}
# Combine the data array with $delimiter and write it to the file
$line = implode($delimiter, $fields) . "\n";
fwrite($handle, $line);
# Return the length of the written data
return strlen($line);
}
up
0
jon+dontspamme at phpsitesolutions dot com
16 years ago
I found that the fputcsv examples for PHP 4 missed one thing, that was proper handling of the $enclosure value when it is a quote (if a quote is passed in a field, and it is delimited by a slash, it will be improperly handled by the functions submitted here).

My modified function was built using the actual PHP5 source for fputcsv, with the addition of properly reacting to the existence of a delimited quote in the field being processed.

<?php
if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) {
function
fputcsv(&$handle, $fields = array(), $delimiter = ',', $enclosure = '"') {

// Sanity Check
if (!is_resource($handle)) {
trigger_error('fputcsv() expects parameter 1 to be resource, ' .
gettype($handle) . ' given', E_USER_WARNING);
return
false;
}

if (
$delimiter!=NULL) {
if(
strlen($delimiter) < 1 ) {
trigger_error('delimiter must be a character', E_USER_WARNING);
return
false;
}elseif(
strlen($delimiter) > 1 ) {
trigger_error('delimiter must be a single character', E_USER_NOTICE);
}

/* use first character from string */
$delimiter = $delimiter[0];
}

if(
$enclosure!=NULL ) {
if(
strlen($enclosure) < 1 ) {
trigger_error('enclosure must be a character', E_USER_WARNING);
return
false;
}elseif(
strlen($enclosure) > 1 ) {
trigger_error('enclosure must be a single character', E_USER_NOTICE);
}

/* use first character from string */
$enclosure = $enclosure[0];
}

$i = 0;
$csvline = '';
$escape_char = '\\';
$field_cnt = count($fields);
$enc_is_quote = in_array($enclosure, array('"',"'"));
reset($fields);

foreach(
$fields AS $field ) {

/* enclose a field that contains a delimiter, an enclosure character, or a newline */
if( is_string($field) && (
strpos($field, $delimiter)!==false ||
strpos($field, $enclosure)!==false ||
strpos($field, $escape_char)!==false ||
strpos($field, "\n")!==false ||
strpos($field, "\r")!==false ||
strpos($field, "\t")!==false ||
strpos($field, ' ')!==false ) ) {

$field_len = strlen($field);
$escaped = 0;

$csvline .= $enclosure;
for(
$ch = 0; $ch < $field_len; $ch++ ) {
if(
$field[$ch] == $escape_char && $field[$ch+1] == $enclosure && $enc_is_quote ) {
continue;
}elseif(
$field[$ch] == $escape_char ) {
$escaped = 1;
}elseif( !
$escaped && $field[$ch] == $enclosure ) {
$csvline .= $enclosure;
}else{
$escaped = 0;
}
$csvline .= $field[$ch];
}
$csvline .= $enclosure;
} else {
$csvline .= $field;
}

if(
$i++ != $field_cnt ) {
$csvline .= $delimiter;
}
}

$csvline .= "\n";

return
fwrite($handle, $csvline);
}
}
?>
up
-2
David Thomas
12 years ago
Output XML string as CSV with first row as column headers:

<?php

// In this case XML is
// <records>
// <record>...</record>
// <record>...</record>
// </records>

if($xml = simplexml_load_string($string)){
// Keep up to 12MB in memory, if becomes bigger write to temp file
$file = fopen('php://temp/maxmemory:'. (12*1024*1024), 'r+');
if(
$row = get_object_vars($xml->record[0])){ // First record
// First row contains column header values
foreach($row as $key => $value){
$header[] = $key;
}
fputcsv($file, $header,',','"');
foreach (
$xml->record as $record) {
fputcsv($file, get_object_vars($record),',','"');
}
rewind($file);
$output = stream_get_contents($file);
fclose($file);
return
$output;
}else{
return
'';
}
}

?>
up
-1
mnz
5 years ago
Hope this could help..

In some server configuration an associative array doesn't work. In my case the script stops without any error or message, just fputcsv return "false".

Diggin'n'Debuggin I found that in my local setup associative arrays works, but on live server not. Just removing keys solved the problem.

So, it's better to strip keys before calling fputcsv()

<?php

// Remove keys from an array

$csv_fields = array();

foreach(
$associative_array as $value) {
$csv_fields[] = $value;
}

fputcsv( $handler, $csv_fields);

?>
up
-5
boonerunner at hotmail dot com
19 years ago
Here is an adaption of the above code that adds support for double quotes inside a field. (One double quote is replaced with a pair of double quotes per the CSV format).

<?php
function fputcsv($filePointer,$dataArray,$delimiter,$enclosure)
{
// Write a line to a file
// $filePointer = the file resource to write to
// $dataArray = the data to write out
// $delimeter = the field separator

// Build the string
$string = "";

// No leading delimiter
$writeDelimiter = FALSE;
foreach(
$dataArray as $dataElement)
{
// Replaces a double quote with two double quotes
$dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement);

// Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first)
if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter;

// Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string
$string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure;

// Delimiters are used every time except the first.
$writeDelimiter = TRUE;
}
// end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement)

// Append new line
$string .= "\n";

// Write the string to the file
fwrite($filePointer,$string);
}
?>
To Top