CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlcsv
Aquaholic
Aquaholic

Reputation: 883

Make tabular Data downloadable as a CSV file

I have a website which offers data in standard HTML table form and is displayed across 7 columns. At the backend, data is stored in MySQL and displayed through PHP on the webpage.

Site visitors have been demanding that data be made available for download in a CSV file, and I am OK to offer that feature.

What is the best way to offer a limited number of columns (say 3 out of 7 columns) with a one-click download into CSV file?

Note: this question is NOT about site visitors scraping data using python or other scripts, but it is about a webmaster willingly offering the option to download data in a CSV file.

Searched for and checked this thread XML or CSV for "Tabular Data", but it does not have a precise answer, hence the question.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 83

Answers (1)

Newbie
Newbie

Reputation: 4829

Create a new PHP file (page) that instead of rendering the content as HTML will render it as a CSV. Then manipulate response headers to make clear to the browser that it is a file meant to be downloaded. This is how your .php file should look like:

<?php

    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: text/csv');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.csv"');

    // ... QUERY FOR DATA

    $outstream = fopen("php://output", 'w');
    function __outputCSV(&$vals, $key, $filehandler) {
      fputcsv($filehandler, $vals, ',', '"');
    }
    // CSV header
    __outputCSV(['header1', 'header2', ...]);
    // CSV body
    array_walk($data, '__outputCSV', $outstream);
    fclose($outstream);

?>

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions