Check file uploaded is in csv format

I am uploading a file in php and only want to upload it if it's a csv file. I believe my syntax is right for the content type. It always goes to else statement when it's a csv file. What I am doing wrong here?

if (($_FILES["file"]["type"] == "text/csv"))
{

}
else
{

}

If I change the content type it works for that format just not csv.


the mime type might not be text/csv some systems can read/save them different. (for example sometimes IE sends .csv files as application/vnd.ms-excel) so you best bet would be to build an array of allowed values and test against that, then find all possible values to test against.

$mimes = array('application/vnd.ms-excel','text/plain','text/csv','text/tsv');
if(in_array($_FILES['file']['type'],$mimes)){
  // do something
} else {
  die("Sorry, mime type not allowed");
}

if you wished you could add a further check if mime is returned as text/plain you could run a preg_match to make sure it has enough commas in it to be a csv.


There are a lot of possible MIME types for CSV files, depending on the user's OS and browser version.

This is how I currently validate the MIME types of my CSV files:

$csv_mimetypes = array(
    'text/csv',
    'text/plain',
    'application/csv',
    'text/comma-separated-values',
    'application/excel',
    'application/vnd.ms-excel',
    'application/vnd.msexcel',
    'text/anytext',
    'application/octet-stream',
    'application/txt',
);

if (in_array($_FILES['upload']['type'], $csv_mimetypes)) {
    // possible CSV file
    // could also check for file content at this point
}

You can't always rely on MIME type..

According to: http://filext.com/file-extension/CSV

text/comma-separated-values, text/csv, application/csv, application/excel, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.msexcel, text/anytext

There are various MIME types for CSV.

You're probably better off checking extension, again not very reliable, but for your application, it may be fine.

$info = pathinfo($_FILES['uploadedfile']['name']);

if($info['extension'] == 'csv'){
 // Good to go
}

Code untested.