How to create and download a csv file from php script

Question

I am a novice programmer and I searched a lot about my question but couldn t find a helpful solution or tutorial about this   My goal is I have a PHP array and the array elements are showing in a list on the page   I want to add an option  so that if a user wants  he she can create a CSV file with array elements and download it   I don t know how to do this  I have searched a lot too  But yet to find any helpful resource   Please provide me some tutorial or solution or advice to implement it by myself  As I m a novice please provide easy to implement solutions   My array looks like    Array        0    gt  Array                        fs id    gt  4c524d8abfc6ef3b201f489c              name    gt  restaurant              lat    gt  40 702692              lng    gt  -74 012869              address    gt  new york              postalCode    gt                city    gt  NEW YORK              state    gt  ny              business type    gt  BBQ Joint              url    gt

User · Answer

Use the below code to convert a php array to CSV   lt  php     ROW db export data     Will return a php array    header  Content-type  application csv       header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename test csv        fp   fopen  php   output    w        foreach   ROW as  row            fputcsv  fp   row           fclose  fp

User · Answer

That is the function that I used for my project  and it works as expected   function array csv download   array   filename    export csv    delimiter             header   Content-Type  application csv         header   Content-Disposition  attachment  filename       filename                   clean output buffer     ob end clean          handle   fopen   php   output    w             use keys as column titles     fputcsv   handle  array keys   array  0             foreach    array as  value             fputcsv   handle   value    delimiter               fclose   handle            flush buffer     ob flush            use exit to get rid of unexpected output afterward     exit

User · Answer

I don t have enough reputation to reply to  complex857 solution  It works great  but I had to add   at the end of the Content-Disposition header  Without it the browser adds two dashes at the end of the filename  e g  instead of  export csv  the file gets saved as  export csv--    Probably it tries to sanitize  r n at the end of the header line   Correct line should look like this   header  Content-Disposition  attachment filename     filename          In case when CSV has UTF-8 chars in it  you have to change the encoding to UTF-8 by changing the Content-Type line   header  Content-Type  application csv  charset UTF-8      Also  I find it more elegant to use rewind   instead of fseek     rewind  f     Thanks for your solution

User · Answer

Try    csv download    lt  php  mysql connect  hostname    username    password    mysql select db  dbname     qry   mysql query  SELECT   FROM tablename     data       while  row   mysql fetch array  qry        data     row  field1        row  field2        row  field3        row  field4     n      header  Content-Type  application csv    header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  filename csv     echo  data  exit      gt

User · Answer

You can use the built in fputcsv   for your arrays to generate correct csv lines from your array  so you will have to loop over and collect the lines  like this   f   fopen  quot tmp csv quot    quot w quot    foreach   array as  line        fputcsv  f   line      To make the browsers offer the  quot Save as quot  dialog  you will have to send HTTP headers like this  see more about this header in the rfc   header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  quot filename csv quot       Putting it all together  function array to csv download  array   filename    quot export csv quot    delimiter  quot   quot            open raw memory as file so no temp files needed  you might run out of memory though      f   fopen  php   memory    w            loop over the input array     foreach   array as  line                generate csv lines from the inner arrays         fputcsv  f   line   delimiter                 reset the file pointer to the start of the file     fseek  f  0          tell the browser it s going to be a csv file     header  Content-Type  application csv           tell the browser we want to save it instead of displaying it     header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  quot    filename   quot             make php send the generated csv lines to the browser     fpassthru  f      And you can use it like this  array to csv download array    array 1 2 3 4      this array is going to be the first row   array 1 2 3 4       this array is going to be the second row    quot numbers csv quot      Update  Instead of the php   memory you can also use the php   output for the file descriptor and do away with the seeking and such  function array to csv download  array   filename    quot export csv quot    delimiter  quot   quot         header  Content-Type  application csv        header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  quot    filename   quot              open the  quot output quot  stream        see http   www php net manual en wrappers php php refsect2-wrappers php-unknown-unknown-unknown-descriptioq      f   fopen  php   output    w         foreach   array as  line            fputcsv  f   line   delimiter

User · Answer

Use the following   echo   lt script type  text javascript  gt  window location href     file name    lt  script gt

User · Answer

If you re array structure will always be multi-dimensional in that exact fashion  then we can iterate through the elements like such    fh   fopen  somefile csv    w   or die  Cannot open the file     for   i 0   i lt count  arr    i           str   implode        arr  i         fwrite   fh   str        fwrite   fh    n       fclose  fh     That s one way to do it     you could do it manually but this way is quicker and easier to understand and read   Then you would manage your headers something what complex857 is doing to spit out the file   You could then delete the file using unlink   if you no longer needed it  or you could leave it on the server if you wished

[php] How to create and download a csv file from php script?

Examples related to php

Examples related to export-to-csv