parse CSV data sets for export to mysql with php

[martha70]

I’m running PHP MySQL (zen-cart) I’m looking for info on CSV files with data sets and how I can import these into MySQL. I found a number of topics involving simple CSV files and I tried a number of programs designed to do this but none addressing data sets and export to multiple tables (three in my case) within a MySQL database. My CSV input text file (see example below) is comprised of lines related to one-another according to their line positions. Records are separated by empty lines. I understand there is a function in PHP called fgetcsv and I wonder how this could be used to import this format data into MySQL.

1141,ORDER
1141,DATE,"2/10/2007, 7:44 PM"
1141,AMOUNT,36.00,0.00,0.00,0.00,36.00
1141,PAYMENT,Invoice
1141,CUSTOMER," Smith, Joe","Smith Nursery",""
1141,ITEM,1,1,36.00,"Actinidia Hardy Kiwi Female",7

1142,ORDER
1142,DATE,"2/13…

The data is from a Palm handheld and I’d like to get the orders into the zen-cart database. I must admit that it seems I’m way over my head here… at least maybe someone could tell me if this is even possible. Thanks.

[Motoma]

[php]
$handle = fopen($fileName, "r");
$lines = array();
for($i = 0; ($i < $num) && (!feof($handle)); $i++) array_push($lines, fgetcsv($handle,65535));
[/php]

Those three lines should leave you with a 2 dimensional array with your entire CSV's content in it.

[martha70]

Thanks for the reply! I'll need to learn some basic PHP and try to fill in the rest of the script and I'll be back to report how it went. Those lines look promising.