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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-11T20:49:10+00:00

I have a simple drop down box on a web page. In it are

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I have a simple drop down box on a web page. In it are all the states in the US. When a user selects a state,
I’d like to have a PHP script only return the companies that are in the state the user selected (as HTML).

I’ve a csv file that reads as follows:

stateId,company,contact,phone,when,addy1
3,abc mining,George,555-555-1234,june 6 2012,”Bronx,NY”
2,xyz mining,Fred,555-555-2345,june 7 2012,”Seattle,WA”
0,my company,Me,555-555-3456,june 8 2012,”Eugene,OR”
3,your company,You,555-555-4567,june 9 2012,”Bronx,NY”

and on and on and on….

Using the above, return via an HTML table, only the data (or lines in the csv) with a stateId = 3.

So… I’ve seen many ways to use fgetcsv, but how would I accomplish the above problem?

I was thinking you’d grab the selected index value of the drop-down, pass it as a conditional, iterate through each line, outputting only those with a state id of 3…

Ideally, I’d like to output them in a table, but a list or straight text will do.

Being relatively new to PHP (it’s been 10+ years since I’ve even looked at it…) – I’d REALLY appreciate the help.

I know… a database would be easier – but I’ve complete control over the csv and would rather go this route for the time being.

    <?php

echo "<table>\n";

$row = 0;
$handle = fopen("mycsvfile.csv", "r");

while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
    if ($row == 0) {
       // column line
        $num = count($data);
        echo "<thead>\n<tr>";
        $row++;
        for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {
            echo "<th>" . $data[$c] . "</th>";
        }
        echo "</tr>\n</thead>\n\n<tbody>";
    } else {
        // non-header lines
        $num = count($data);
        echo "<tr>";
        $row++;
        for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {
            echo "<td>" . $data[$c] . "</td>";
        }
        echo "</tr>\n";
    }
}
fclose($handle);

echo "</tbody>\n</table>";

?>

I start to lose it after this point… This simply outputs all data – I still need it to show only data for the state the user selected, via a variable, and NOT output lines that are for other states not selected.

Do I use strpos(), explode(), split()… I’m a dotNet programmer with little to no experience in php – and am hoping to learn. This is my first project – so take it easy on me! I don’t know and have not used php functions/methods – so I’m not familiar with them. 😉

I’ve XAMPP up and running, so I’m not completely hopeless.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    here’s what I ended up doing…

        <?php
   $selectedSt = $_GET["states"];// get method - should clean the data...
$row = 0;
$handle = fopen("mycsv.csv", "r");//open file
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
    if ($row == 0) {//skip first row (headers)
                $row++;} 
                else {
        $stAbbrev = $data[0];
        if ($stAbbrev == $selectedSt){//show only selected state
            $num = count($data);
            $row++;
            for ($c=0; $c < $num; $c++) {
                if ($c==0){}
                else{
                    if ($data[$c]==""){}//if empty line
                    else{echo $data[$c]."<br />";}}}//write array item
                    echo "<br />";}}}//end it all with some white space
    fclose($handle);       
?>
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