Reading data from text file and displaying it in a table using PHP

Question

I have text files that I would like to read into a website and then display. I use

$sListText = file_get_contents("result - 0001.txt");
echo nl2br($sListText);

which loads it fine with line breaks. I just have no clue how to turn the table data into a table with php.

The text file looks like this:

Prestige Byeenkoms 2014 Dal Josafat Stadion,    10/02/2014

Item: 1 (Dogters - 14) Spiesgooi 500 gm

Pos Naam    Van Span    Uitslag Punt    ASA Rek
1   Marle   Rademan GHBH    35.67   8   879 R
2   Lara    Jordaan GHBH    25.58   5   671 
3   Martine Hartung PG  24.67   4   650 
4   Marlie  Theunissen  PG  23.50   3   622 
5   Rochelle    ROOS    BLRO    21.75   2   578 
6   Mishka  ELLIS   BLRO    21.20   1   564

The top two lines at the top are the headings. The data underneath must form a table with no border.

Can anyone please help?

Update:

I tried the following and it worked beautifully:

echo "<html><body><table>\n\n";
$f = fopen("0001.csv", "r");
while (($line = fgetcsv($f)) !== false) {
        echo "<tr>";
        foreach ($line as $cell) {
                echo "<td>" . htmlspecialchars($cell) . "</td>";
        }
        echo "</tr>\n";
}
fclose($f);
echo "\n</table></body></html>";

Is it possible to skip the first two lines of the csv file, or better still, keep them separate from the table data which starts on line three?

It is all tab separated. The text is exported from a application, which can export to csv. — Seef
– Seef, Commented Feb 16, 2014 at 13:04

Michael Coxon · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-16 13:00:11Z

3

You need to read in the table so you can loop through it.

You will need to write some code to work out when the table starts. you might be able to loop through each line until you see "Pos" (as that is your table header).

In regards to the two lines of headers at the top of the file, you need to work out how you want to extract these and tokenise them. See the php manual for fgets() so you can read in each line. You can then explode() them as you please.

This is a way to do it...

<table>
<?php

// open the file
if (($handle = fopen("result - 0001.txt", "r")) !== false) {

    // TODO: use fgets() to find the row..


    // loop through each row
    while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 0, "\t")) !== false) {

        echo "<tr>";

        for ($c = 0; $c < $num; $c++) 
        {
            echo "<td>" . $data[$c] . "</td>";
        }

        echo "</tr>";

    }

    // close file
    fclose($handle);
}
?>
</table>

edited Feb 16, 2014 at 13:00

answered Feb 16, 2014 at 12:52

Michael Coxon

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5 Comments

Seef Over a year ago

I get: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected end of file in /home/athletic/public_html/bolandsentraal/Output/test.php on line 28

Gordon Over a year ago

@user3315413 that's a simple syntax error. fix it instead of expecting people to provide copy and paste ready answers please. The general approach is what counts, not the code itself.

Michael Coxon Over a year ago

Yeah I just fixed it up. I forgot to close the </tr> :p

Seef Over a year ago

I will try. I am a complete newbie so it is kinda hard. Thanks for you help anyway.

Michael Coxon Over a year ago

No problems, but being a newbie you may find it helpful to read through the String functions and Filesystem functions in the php manual. These contain everything you need to do what you are trying to do. au2.php.net/manual/en/ref.filesystem.php and au2.php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php

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