This part of the length parameter behavior description is tricky, because it's not mentioning that separator is considered as a char and converted into an empty string: "Otherwise the line is split in chunks of length characters (...)".
First, take a look at the example of reading a line which does't contain separators:
<?php
file_put_contents('data.csv', 'foo'); $handle = fopen('data.csv', 'c+');
$data = fgetcsv($handle, 2);
var_dump($data);
?>
Example above will output:
array(1) {
[0]=>
string(2) "fo"
}
Now let's add separators:
<?php
file_put_contents('data.csv', 'f,o,o'); $handle = fopen('data.csv', 'c+');
$data = fgetcsv($handle, 2);
var_dump($data);
?>
Second example will output:
array(2) {
[0]=>
string(1) "f"
[1]=>
string(0) ""
}
Now let's alter the length:
<?php
file_put_contents('data.csv', 'f,o,o');
$handle = fopen('data.csv', 'c+');
$data = fgetcsv($handle, 3); var_dump($data);
?>
Output of the last example is:
array(2) {
[0]=>
string(1) "f"
[1]=>
string(1) "o"
}
The final conclusion is that while splitting line in chunks, separator is considered as a char during the read but then it's being converted into empty string. What's more, if separator is at the very first or last position of a chunk it will be included in the result array, but if it's somewhere between other chars, then it will be just ignored.
