How do a parse a simple tab delimited file?

Anon

I cannot figure out how to parse a simple tab delimited text file into a 2 dimensional array. I tried the following...

$row = 0;
$fp = fopen ($file,"r");
while ($data = fgets ($fp, 1000, "\t")) {
$num = count ($data);
$row++;
for ($col=0; $col<$num; $col++) {
$new[$row][$col] = $data[$col];

}

}

fclose ($fp);

I should now be able to access $new by specifying the row and column i.e ...

echo $new[2][5];

This works ONLY if there are no blank fields in the text file. if a line has a blank field in it (2 or more tabs in rows) all the data to the right is shifted one field to the left. This renders the function useless.

Is there not an easy way to do this, knowing that I must use tabs as the delimiter? I looked at using explode, but have been unable to find a sample of how to do it.

Thanks, any advise is most appreciated

-Bob

Anon

Using explode() function is so simple.

for example,
in case of your source,

your data file is following,

contents of data : a bcd fg b

to parse this data, you just write like following this,

$fp = fopen ($file,"r");
$line = fgets($fp, 1000);
$arr = explode(" ", $line);

to print this, write like following this,

while(list($key,$val) = each($arr)) {
echo("\$arr[$key] : $val<br>");
}

contents of print :

$arr[0] : a
$arr[1] : bcd
$arr[2] : fg
$arr[3] : b

in order to change delimeter(,) in this case,
you just change parameter of explode like this,

$arr = explode(",", $line);

your job is just to change $arr[] values to $new[][].

I hope you will have a good result.
bye.