#DelimiterFinder

A little utility class that reads a .csv or .dat (or whatever) file and tries to guess the delimiter

##Usage

###Create an instance

Include the file and create a new instance in the usual way; the constructor takes a filepath as a required argument:

require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/DelimiterFinder.php';

try {
    $finder = new DelimiterFinder('path/to/data.csv');
} catch (InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    // file does not exist :o 
} catch (RuntimeException $e) {
    // file is not readable :(
}

The object will try to open a file handle on the filepath provided. If the file is unreadable or non-existent exceptions will be thrown.

###Find

Assuming all went smoothly to this point, it's time to try to guess the delimiter.

The class searches for a likely delimiter from the following list of usual suspects:

• comma (,), tab (\t) or semicolon (;)

Just call the find method:

$delimiter = $finder->find();

If successful, find() stores and returns the matched delimiter. Subsequent calls to do not search the document again; they just return the stored match.

###If at first you don't succeed...

If a match is not successful, the find() method returns false. Subsequent calls to find() will search the document again. You can add any number of custom delimiters to search, which makes repeat searches a little more useful ;)

$finder->addDelimiter('|');
$delimiter = $finder->find(); // pipe-delimited file? success!