Re: File_CSV as standalone package?

On Saturday, August 30, 2003 10:24, Alan Knowles wrote: >> >> I doubt it too, unless people start using it and notice bugs. :) I plan >> to use it to parse an exchange rate feed from the Bank of Canada, so it >> still has use at least until XML can be imported and exported from >> everything instead. (Just an interesting tidbit: the UN is making a seb >> services section of its site with SOAP.) > have a look at www.php.net/fgetcsv - for the most part File_CSV is > redundant (Except in exceptional cases where the file cannot be handled > by the build in functions.. Well, I would say that for the most part File_CSV provides features that can't be handled with fgetcsv(). Just for mentioning some: - Automatic discovering of the CSV format (separator, number of fields, if uses quotation). With fgetcsv() you need to *know* this params and need to pass them to the function. Not in all cases you know this information. - Error detecting in CSV files. It's usual that some entries in CSV file are broken (more or less fields than expected for example). - It can handle multilined quoted fields. The support for that was introduced in the recent PHP 4.3.0 (cool addition btw), while this class has more than one year old. - It can *write* csv files (with error checking) just passing an array (the class will quote when needed). - It uses fgetcsv() if don't find the need to use the built-in php parser, being the speed of this class almost the same as using fgetcsv(). - It support parsing csv comming from strings (I'm pending on applying the patch sent for that). Since many time I like to make it a separate package. But cause I'm lazy I never find time for writing doc I haven't done it yet. -- Tomas V.V.Cox mailto:cox@idecnet.com