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I am Sharam, current exchange student in Europe from a after school club tackling politics & issues concerning the youth of Southeastern Asia. In our group we have new volunteers around the world every month and we have setup central server to categorise & prioritise tasks the club must have performed in the future to have meaning in our country. I have little knowledge in PHP however I am eager to learn, here is my problem...

Because SQL it's too complex we use CSV. Everybody can edit master CSV & add tasks to it like here:

Priority,Task,Person
High,Campus flyers,Ashley
High,Test videocall with teacher,Sharam
Low,New Website,Martin & Aneet
Medium,Auditorium recruiting,Martin & Aneet & Ashley
Low,Garbage collecting,Sharam & Ashley
High,Ask permission to reserve classroom Sat & Sun,Sharam

As you see, priority of item is high, medium, low in any order. I tried array_merge_recursive() but maybe I am doing it wrong:

<?php

$file = @fopen("tasks-list.csv", "r") or exit("error, check server status");

$array = array();
$header = fgetcsv($file, 1000, ","); //don't need header in array

while (!feof($file)) {
  $data = fgetcsv($file, 1000, ",");
  if (!empty($data)) {
    $array = array_merge_recursive($array, array($data[0] => $data[1], $data[2]));
  }
}
fclose($file);
?>

Result is mixed up and I am missing how to make CSV input grouped by column like here:

High priority tasks:
1. Campus flyers (Ashley)
2. Test videocall with teacher (Sharam)
3. Ask permission to reserve classroom Sat & Sun (Sharam)

Medium priority tasks:
1. Auditorium recruiting (Martin & Aneet & Ashley)

Low priority tasks:
1. New Website (Martin & Aneet)
2. Garbage collecting (Sharam & Ashley)

My code it's missing presentational part but it is not the difficult part. HTML is easy to me but I have problem with array grouped properly. How can I achieve it? Thank you

Sorry about my grammars & spelling, I am just learning second year of English! --Sharam

Sharam Patel
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2 Answers2

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Check out my PHP class: http://pastebin.com/KVcYxuXY

Here is how its used

<?php 
require_once('CSV_parser.php');
// path to your csv file
$parser = new CSV_parser('c:/sample.csv');
// Result an array
$parser->toArray();
// To table
$parser->toTable();
// To JSON
$parser->toJSON();
?>
Johndave Decano
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Build an array that has the left most column as its index, and each entry in that array is the rest of the data in the row.

$result = array();
while (!feof($file)) {
  $data = fgetcsv($file, 1000, ",");
  $key = array_shift( $data);
  if( !isset( $result[ $key ])) {
    $result[ $key ] = array();
  }
  $result[ $key ][] = $data;
}

Now, to print it out, this is all you have to do:

foreach( $result as $priority => $entries) {
  echo $priority . ' priority tasks' . "\n";
  foreach( $entries as $i => $entry) {
      echo "$i. {$entry[0]} ({$entry[1]})\n";
  }
  echo "\n";
}
nickb
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  • Dear nickb, now my program works perfect but I do not understand it fully. It seems the code can work without problem if I remove the statement "if( !isset( $result[ $key ])) { $result[ $key ] = array(); }" Can you elaborate what the purpose of the statement is? – Sharam Patel Aug 03 '12 at 16:30
  • @Sharam - It will work because PHP will automatically create an array for you, but issue a notice (or a warning, can't remember) of undefined variables. If you turn error_reporting all the way up, you'l see these notices. So, that if statement is there to prevent those notices/warnings. – nickb Aug 03 '12 at 16:32
  • Thank you I have already set error_reporting(-1); so I wonder why I am not seeing anything. I had suspicions that it is to suppress notices/errors, so what is wrong? – Sharam Patel Aug 03 '12 at 18:27