cope with tokenizing from csv file when some fields are empty 1

[excession]

I'm am reading data froma CSV file, after the line is read I am using strtok to break the line up using the comma as the deliminator.

So far so good, the problem arises because some of the fileds are empty and strtok just skipps them. Is the a way round this?

eg:
Line: a,b,,d

I need to get 4 variables:
$val1 = 'a'
$val2 = 'b'
$val3 = ''
$val4 = 'd'

any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

 

[DRJ478]

Have you considered using explode() instead?
The PHP manual states clearly:

The behavior when an empty part was found changed with PHP 4.1.0. The old behavior returned an empty string, while the new, correct, behavior simply skips the part of the string:

Example 2. Old strtok() behavior
<?php
$first_token = strtok('/something', '/');
$second_token = strtok('/');
var_dump($first_token, $second_token);
?>

Output:

string(0) ""
string(9) "something"

Example 3. New strtok() behavior
<?php
$first_token = strtok('/something', '/');
$second_token = strtok('/');
var_dump($first_token, $second_token);
?>

Output:

string(9) "something"
bool(false)

 

[excession]

Thanks, explode() works a treat and sounds great too.

 

[kenrbnsn]

Is there any reason why you can't use the function fgetcsv() which will read each line and returns an array. See

http://www.php.net/fgetcsv

for more information.

Ken

 

[excession]

I could have done. I'm relatively new to PHP and wasn't aware of the function. Will look it up. Thanks.