layout: default title: Converting your CSV redirect_from: /converting/

Converting the CSV

The League\Csv object can convert your CSV document into JSON, XML and HTML formats. In order to do so, the conversion methods assume that your CSV is UTF-8 encoded. To properly transcode your document into an UTF-8 compatible charset, it's recommended to use the library stream filtering mechanism.

When this is not possible/applicable you can fallback to using the setEncodingFrom and getEncodingFrom methods.

If your CSV is not UTF-8 encoded some unexpected results and some errors may be thrown when trying to convert your data.

Convert to JSON format

AbstractCsv implements the JsonSerializable interface. As such you can use the json_encode function directly on the instantiated object.

echo json_encode($reader);

Convert to XML

Use the toXML method to convert the CSV data into a DomDocument object.

public AbstractCsv::toXML(
    string $root_name = 'csv',
    string $row_name = 'row',
    string $cell_name = 'cell'
): DOMDocument

This method accepts 3 optionals arguments to help you customize the XML tree:

$root_name, the XML root name which defaults to csv;
$row_name, the XML node element representing a CSV row which defaults to row;
$cell_name, the XML node element for each CSV cell which defaults value is cell;

use League\Csv\Reader;

$reader = Reader::createFromPath('/path/to/file.csv', 'r');
$dom = $reader->toXML('data', 'line', 'item');

Convert to HTML table

Use the toHTML method to convert the CSV data into an HTML table.

public AbstractCsv::toHTML(string $classAttribute = 'table-csv-data'): string

This method accepts an optional argument $classAttribute to help you customize the table rendering. By default, the classname given to the table is table-csv-data.

use League\Csv\Reader;

$reader = Reader::createFromPath('/path/to/file.csv', 'r');
echo $reader->toHTML('table table-bordered table-hover');

Example using data transcode before conversion

use League\Csv\Reader;

$reader = Reader::createFromFileObject(new SplFileObject('/path/to/bengali.csv'));
//we are using the setEncodingFrom method to transcode the CSV into UTF-8
$reader->setEncodingFrom('iso-8859-15');
echo json_encode($reader);
//the CSV is transcoded from iso-8859-15 to UTF-8
//before being converted to JSON format;
echo $reader; //outputting the data is not affected by the conversion

Csv Laravel Package