How to Import CSV Data into Database using wpdb in WordPress Plugin
Posted on 16th June 2023
The WordPress wpdb class is used for interacting with the WordPress database. In this tutorial, we will see how to use the wpdb class to import CSV data into the WordPress database.
We will first need to create a plugin. For this tutorial, we will assume that the plugin is called “my-plugin”. The first thing we need to do is to create a function that will handle the import of the CSV file. This function will need to be hooked into the ‘init’ action.
Creating the Import Function
The first thing we need to do is to check if the user has uploaded a CSV file. We can do this by checking if the ‘csv_file’ key exists in the $_FILES array.
if ( isset( $_FILES[‘csv_file’] ) ) {
// do something
}
Next, we need to check if the uploaded file is actually a CSV file. We can do this by checking the file extension.
if ( isset( $_FILES[‘csv_file’] ) && pathinfo($_FILES[‘csv_file’][‘name’], PATHINFO_EXTENSION) == ‘csv’ ) {
// do something
}
Now that we know that the uploaded file is a CSV file, we can move on to the next step which is to get the contents of the CSV file. We can do this by using the PHP function ‘file_get_contents’.
$csv_file = file_get_contents( $_FILES[‘csv_file’][‘tmp_name’] );
Next, we need to convert the CSV file into an array. We can do this by using the PHP function ‘str_getcsv’.
$csv_array = str_getcsv( $csv_file, “n” );
Now that we have the CSV file in an array, we can loop through each row and insert the data into the database. We can do this using the WordPress function ‘wpdb->insert’.
foreach ( $csv_array as $row ) {
$wpdb->insert(
‘table_name’,
array(
‘column_1’ => $row[0],
‘column_2’ => $row[1],
‘column_3’ => $row[2],
)
);
}
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we saw how to use the WordPress wpdb class to import CSV data into the WordPress database.
Assuming you have a CSV file ready to be imported into your WordPress database, the first thing you need to do is open the file in a text editor such as Notepad++.
Next, you need to make sure that the file is saved as UTF-8 encoding. To do this in Notepad++, go to the File menu and choose Save As. In the Save As dialog box, select UTF-8 from the Encoding drop-down list and click Save.
Once the file is saved as UTF-8 encoding, you can now import it into your WordPress database using the wpdb class.
The wpdb class comes with a handy function called insert() which can be used to insert data into a WordPress database table. The insert() function takes two arguments – the first argument is the name of the database table you want to insert data into, and the second argument is an array of data to be inserted.
So, to insert our CSV data into the WordPress database, we need to first read the data from the CSV file and then insert it into the database table using the insert() function.
We can read the data from the CSV file using the PHP fopen() function. The fopen() function takes two arguments – the first argument is the path to the CSV file and the second argument is the mode in which the file should be opened. In our case, we want to open the file in read mode, so we’ll use the ‘r’ mode.
Once the file is open, we can read the data from it using the PHP fgetcsv() function. The fgetcsv() function takes two arguments – the first argument is the file handle of the open file and the second argument is the number of bytes to be read from the file.
We’ll set the number of bytes to be read from the file to 0, which means that the fgetcsv() function will read the entire CSV file.
Once the fgetcsv() function has read the data from the CSV file, it will return an array of data. This array will have one element for each row in the CSV file.
So, if our CSV file has 10 rows of data, the fgetcsv() function will return an array with 10 elements.
We can then loop through this array and insert each row of data into the WordPress database table using the insert() function.
Here’s the code to read the data from the CSV file and insert it into the WordPress database:
$file = fopen( ‘path/to/file.csv’, ‘r’ ); while ( ( $data = fgetcsv( $file, 0, ‘,’ ) ) !== FALSE ) { $wpdb->insert( ‘table_name’, $data ); } fclose( $file );
In the code above, we first used the fopen() function to open the CSV file. We then used the fgetcsv() function to read the data from the file.
We then looped through the array returned by the fgetcsv() function and inserted each row of data into the WordPress database table using the insert() function.
Once the data has been inserted into the WordPress database, you can then use it in your WordPress plugin or theme.
If you want to learn more about the wpdb class and how to use it in WordPress, I recommend checking out the WordPress Codex.
CSV files are a great way to store data. You can use them to store data in a structured format, such as a customer database. However, importing CSV data into a database can be a bit tricky.
The wpdb class makes it easy to import CSV data into a WordPress database. First, you need to make sure that the CSV file is in the correct format. The file should have a header row with the column names, and each row should have the data for each column.
Once the file is in the correct format, you can use the wpdb->insert() method to insert the data into the database. The first parameter of the insert() method is the name of the table, and the second parameter is an array of the data to be inserted.
Here is an example of how to insert CSV data into a WordPress database:
$wpdb->insert( ‘table_name’, array( ‘column1’ => ‘value1’, ‘column2’ => ‘value2’, ‘column3’ => ‘value3’ ) );
You can also use the wpdb->update() method to update existing data in the database. The first parameter of the update() method is the name of the table, the second parameter is an array of the data to be updated, and the third parameter is an array of the where clause conditions.
Here is an example of how to update CSV data in a WordPress database:
$wpdb->update( ‘table_name’, array( ‘column1’ => ‘value1’, ‘column2’ => ‘value2’, ‘column3’ => ‘value3’ ), array( ‘condition1’ => ‘value1’, ‘condition2’ => ‘value2’ ) );
You can also use the wpdb->delete() method to delete data from the database. The first parameter of the delete() method is the name of the table, and the second parameter is an array of the where clause conditions.
Here is an example of how to delete CSV data from a WordPress database:
$wpdb->delete( ‘table_name’, array( ‘condition1’ => ‘value1’, ‘condition2’ => ‘value2’ ) );
That’s all there is to it! You can now easily import CSV data into a WordPress database.
