How to Convert JSON file into CSV in PHP ?

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

In this article, we are going to see how to convert JSON data into a CSV file using PHP.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a dictionary-like notation that can be used to structuring data. It is stored with the extension .json, for example - geeksforgeeks.json On the other hand, CSV (or Comma Separated Value) files represent data in a tabular format, with several rows and columns. An example of a CSV file can be an Excel Spreadsheet. These files have the extension of .csv, for example - geeksforgeeks.csv.

Requirements: XAMPP Server Structure of JSON:

[{
 "data1": "value1", 
 "data2": "value2", 
 ..., 
 "data n": "value n"
}]

Example:

[{
 "student": "sravan kumar",
 "age": 22,
 "subject": "java"
}]

Used Methods:

json_decode() Method: This function is used to decode or convert a JSON object to a PHP object.

Syntax:

json_decode( string, assoc )


Example:

$jsondata = '[{
 "student": "sravan kumar",
 "age": 22,
 "subject": "java"
},
{
 "student": "ojaswi",
 "age": 21,
 "subject": "java"
},
{ 
 "student": "rohith",
 "age": 22,
 "subject": "dbms"
},
{
 "student": "bobby",
 "age": 22,
 "subject": "sql"
}]';

// Decode the json data and convert it
// into an associative array
$jsonans = json_decode($jsondata, true);

fopen() Method: It is used to open a file.

Syntax:

fopen( filename, file_mode )

Example:

// File pointer in writable mode
$file_pointer = fopen($csv, 'w');

fclose() Method: It is used to close the file.
Syntax:
```
fclose( $file_pointer );
```
Example:
```
fclose( $file_pointer );
```
fputcsv() Method: It is used to place the data into CSV file.
Syntax:
```
fputcsv( file, fields )
```
Example:
```
fputcsv( $file_pointer, $i );
```