PHP Manual: Set the delimiter, enclosure and escape character for CSV

Description

public void SplFileObject::setCsvControl(string $separator = ",", string $enclosure = "\"", string $escape = "\\")

Sets the delimiter, enclosure and escape character for parsing CSV fields.

Parameters

separator: The separator parameter sets the field separator. It must be a single byte character.
enclosure: The enclosure parameter sets the field enclosure character. It must be a single byte character.
escape: The escape parameter sets the escape character. It must be a single byte character or the empty string. The empty string ("") disables the proprietary escape mechanism.

Note: Usually an enclosure character is escaped inside a field by doubling it; however, the escape character can be used as an alternative. So for the default parameter values "" and \" have the same meaning. Other than allowing to escape the enclosure character the escape character has no special meaning; it isn't even meant to escape itself.

Warning
As of PHP 8.4.0, depending on the default value of escape is deprecated. It needs to be provided explicitly either positionally or by the use of named arguments.

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.

Return Values

No value is returned.

Errors/Exceptions

Throws a ValueError if separator or enclosure is not one byte long.

Throws a ValueError if escape is not one byte long or the empty string.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.4.0	Relying on the default value of `escape` is now deprecated.
7.4.0	The `escape` parameter now also accepts an empty string to disable the proprietary escape mechanism.

Examples

Example #1 SplFileObject::setCsvControl example

<?php
$file = new SplFileObject("data.csv");
$file->setFlags(SplFileObject::READ_CSV);
$file->setCsvControl('|');
foreach ($file as $row) {
    list ($fruit, $quantity) = $row;
    // Do something with values
}
?>

Contents of data.csv

<?php
apples|20
bananas|14
cherries|87
?>

SplFileObject::setCsvControl