When using PHP’s SplFileObject for CSV file manipulation, as you will likely discover fgetcsv() also includes empty lines in the returned array.

The suggestion is to use SplFileObject::DROP_NEW_LINE or SplFileObject::SKIP_EMPTY to handle this.

However, I find I often need to use both to achieve the desired result of ignoring blank or empty lines. To achieve this, you need to use a bitmask in your setflags argument.

A value of ’7′ corresponds to both SplFileObject::DROP_NEW_LINE AND SplFileObject::SKIP_EMPTY, e.g.

$file = new SplFileObject($path);
$file->setFlags(7);

setFlags(15) would correspond to a bitmask for DROP_NEWLINE, SKIP_EMPTY, READ_CSV.