In the context of PHP, what are the best practices for parsing and processing CSV files that contain both header information and data rows without a consistent structure?

When parsing CSV files with both header information and data rows without a consistent structure, one approach is to read the file line by line, determine if each line is a header or data row, and process them accordingly. This can be done by checking if the current line matches the expected header structure, and if not, treat it as a data row. By dynamically handling the variations in structure, you can effectively parse and process CSV files with inconsistent formats.

<?php

$csvFile = 'example.csv';
$header = null;
$data = [];

if (($handle = fopen($csvFile, 'r')) !== false) {
    while (($row = fgetcsv($handle)) !== false) {
        if ($header === null) {
            $header = $row;
        } else {
            if (count($row) == count($header)) {
                $data[] = array_combine($header, $row);
            } else {
                // Handle inconsistent data row structure
                // For example, ignore the row or perform custom processing
            }
        }
    }
    fclose($handle);
}

// Process the parsed data as needed
print_r($data);

?>