Convert CSV to JSON

csv-to-json.php

<?php
/*
 * Converts CSV to JSON
 * Example uses Google Spreadsheet CSV feed
 * csvToArray function I think I found on php.net
 */

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

// Set your CSV feed
$feed = 'https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0Akse3y5kCOR8dEh6cWRYWDVlWmN0TEdfRkZ3dkkzdGc&single=true&gid=0&output=csv';

// Arrays we'll use later
$keys = array();
$newArray = array();

// Function to convert CSV into associative array
function csvToArray($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; 
} 

// Do it
$data = csvToArray($feed, ',');

// Set number of elements (minus 1 because we shift off the first row)
$count = count($data) - 1;
  
//Use first row for names  
$labels = array_shift($data);  

foreach ($labels as $label) {
  $keys[] = $label;
}

// Add Ids, just in case we want them later
$keys[] = 'id';

for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
  $data[$i][] = $i;
}
  
// Bring it all together
for ($j = 0; $j < $count; $j++) {
  $d = array_combine($keys, $data[$j]);
  $newArray[$j] = $d;
}

// Print it out as JSON
echo json_encode($newArray);

?>

Great script, saved me a bunch of time for an interactive I was working on for the Guardian.

Couple quick things --
a. I was getting PHP warnings on ln. 54. Adding an @ in from of array_combine(); suppresses that.
b. If you're wanting the JSON to be consumed on a different domain than the one hosting the PHP (i.e., through jQuery's getJSON(); function), you'll need a way around AJAX's same domain origin policy. I've done so by changing the header to script/javascript and replacing line 59 with echo $_GET['callback']. '(' . json_encode($newArray) . ');';. This allows you to consume the output through JSONP by attaching a callback variable to the path (e.g., "?callback=mycallback").

Thanks! Regarding the PHP warnings, what version of PHP are you using?

Sorry for the slow response -- I was using 5.2.17.

Great script, thanks.

On a MAC add

ini_set("auto_detect_line_endings", true);

Great script. Thanks, In my fork I made it for command line use.

Thank you.

Really nice!

Licensing? am I free to use this or are there any restrictions?

We executed this for CSV dataset that we got and the results were incredible. Thank you!!!!!!

Thank you. Saved me.

Thank you. I make my portfolio based on your script.

This is exactly what I needed.
It may be obvious but for anyone who needs to access the PHP created json via javascript, just use this:

<?php $json = json_encode($newArray); ?>
<script>
var $json = <?php echo $json; ?>;
// do your magic here
</script>

Thanks a million Rob! :)

So awesome. Thanks much for the share! I was going to have to refactor a bunch of code, and this worked like a charm. I hope I can repay the favor one day.

I have a nested/setted JSON format I need to produce... Can anyone suggest how to format a spreadsheet to produce this: http://mapplic.com/plugin/mall.json

Or would that require a set of spreadsheets/CSVs?

Great Gist!

I forked it and shortened the csvToArray function to this:
$data = array_map('str_getcsv', file($feed));
as this is more compact and performance should be better.

Tested => works!

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a million!!!!

My file path for my images is folder/imagename.jpg.

When I run this great script, this is the only thing throwing an error. The path come out as folder/imagename.jpg

Here is the screenshot of the issue:
http://i.imgur.com/t0GQAEv.jpg

Also, can the output be saved to a .json file rather than within the PHP?

Really useful. Thanks.

hi, my server has disabled fopen. so is there any alternative like using curl to get the same result??

Thanks for this.

Tried using it in Laravel for my seeders with a csv file and ended up needing to move the csvToArray function outside and call it via $this->csvToArray() due to a redeclare issue.

Great gist. I took inspiration from this and made a simplified version.
https://gist.github.com/devfaysal/9143ca22afcbf252d521f5bf2bdc6194

Can anyone tell me why I'm getting "/ufeff" in my JOSN array ?

Hi, Can anyone please help me with this problem of:
Error with Permissions-Policy header: Origin trial controlled feature not enabled: 'interest-cohort'.

API:
https://bhavin-rb.github.io/math_quiz_1/algebra1_api.json

App:
https://bhavin-rb.github.io/algebra1_quiz/

The quiz app works fine from local host and when I published on Github it gave the above error. I made a json file as API and fetching the API that contains the questions and answer options from Github pages. As I said, locally everything is working fine.
Kindly, assist to resolve this problem. Thank you.