Allow differing column counts per row in CSV export

[AndrewMonty]

This is:

• a bug report
• a feature request
• not a usage question (ask them on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/phpspreadsheet or https://gitter.im/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet)

What is the expected behavior?

There should be an option for each row in a CSV file to have a different number of columns.

Consider a spreadsheet where the first few rows are not actually column headers, but rather some custom heading (in my case a requirement of some third party system consuming the CSV file).

Represented as an array, this might look like:

$data = [
    ['Pretext', 'More pretext'],
    ['this', 'is not', 'a header'],
    ['value 1'],
    ['value 2'],
    ['value 3']
];

And as a spreadsheet:

A	B	C
Pretext	More pretext
this	is not	a header
value 1
value 2
value 3

Writing to a CSV should have the option to exclude the blank cells on each row:

"Pretext","More pretext"
"this","is not","a header"
"value 1"
"value 2"
"value 3"

What is the current behavior?

Currently, the spreadsheet described above would save as a csv like:

"Pretext","More pretext",
"this","is not","a header"
"value 1",,
"value 2",,
"value 3",,

Where the row with the most columns dictates the column count for all rows, and any that fall short are filled with blanks.

What are the steps to reproduce?

Please provide a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example of code that exhibits the issue without relying on an external Excel file or a web server:

<?php

namespace PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheetTests\Writer\Csv;

use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Spreadsheet;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Shared\File;

class VariableColumnsTest extends TestCase
{
    public function testVariableColumns()
    {
        $spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
        $spreadsheet->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('A1', 'A1');
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('B1', 'B1');
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('A2', 'A2');
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('B2', 'B2');
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('C2', 'C2');
        $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet()->setCellValue('A3', 'A3');

        $filename = tempnam(File::sysGetTempDir(), 'phpspreadsheet-test');
        $writer = IOFactory::createWriter($spreadsheet, 'Csv');
        $writer->save($filename);

        $contents = file_get_contents($filename);

        $rows = explode(PHP_EOL, $contents);

        // current
        $this->assertEquals('"A1","B1",""', $rows[0]);
        $this->assertEquals('"A2","B2","C2"', $rows[1]);
        $this->assertEquals('"A3","",""', $rows[2]);

        // desired
        $this->assertEquals('"A1","B1"', $rows[0]);
        $this->assertEquals('"A2","B2","C2"', $rows[1]);
        $this->assertEquals('"A3"', $rows[2]);
    }
}

Which versions of PhpSpreadsheet and PHP are affected?

PhpSpreadsheet 1.10.1

PHP 7.3

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.
If this is still an issue for you, please try to help by debugging it further and sharing your results.
Thank you for your contributions.

[oleibman]

Will be fixed by 4076.