how to find out if csv file fields are tab delimited or comma delimited

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It’s too late to answer this question but hope it will help someone.

Here’s a simple function that will return a delimiter of a file.

function getFileDelimiter($file, $checkLines = 2){
        $file = new SplFileObject($file);
        $delimiters = array(
          ',',
          '\t',
          ';',
          '|',
          ':'
        );
        $results = array();
        $i = 0;
         while($file->valid() && $i <= $checkLines){
            $line = $file->fgets();
            foreach ($delimiters as $delimiter){
                $regExp = '/['.$delimiter.']/';
                $fields = preg_split($regExp, $line);
                if(count($fields) > 1){
                    if(!empty($results[$delimiter])){
                        $results[$delimiter]++;
                    } else {
                        $results[$delimiter] = 1;
                    }   
                }
            }
           $i++;
        }
        $results = array_keys($results, max($results));
        return $results[0];
    }

Use this function as shown below:

$delimiter = getFileDelimiter('abc.csv'); //Check 2 lines to determine the delimiter
$delimiter = getFileDelimiter('abc.csv', 5); //Check 5 lines to determine the delimiter

P.S I have used preg_split() instead of explode() because explode(‘\t’, $value) won’t give proper results.

UPDATE: Thanks for @RichardEB pointing out a bug in the code. I have updated this now.

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