php generating excel and downloading [duplicate]

Question

i have a website with one simple function to generate an excel with array data and then offers user to download.

header( "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" );
header( "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=spreadsheet.xls" );
echo 'First Name' . "\t" . 'Last Name' . "\t" . 'Phone' . "\n";
echo 'John' . "\t" . 'Doe' . "\t" . '555-5555' . "\n";

the code above was used to test, but I only get some html code from the website in the excel, not the data.

May I ask why it happens? Thanks!

@ZeroWorks hi, i get some html code and js code. Now i changed to what mHouses suggested, i see the testing data and whole source code. — user3382722
– user3382722, Commented Jun 3, 2014 at 12:10
if you're getting html from this, then you've got some OTHER code somewhere that's spitting out that html. — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Jun 3, 2014 at 14:18

ZeroWorks · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-03 14:16:59Z

4

Make sure you don't send anything before header calls.

// At the begginnig of script...
ob_start();

// ... do some stuff ...

ob_get_clean();

header( "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" );
header( "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=spreadsheet.xls" );
echo 'First Name' . "\t" . 'Last Name' . "\t" . 'Phone' . "\n";
echo 'John' . "\t" . 'Doe' . "\t" . '555-5555' . "\n";
die();

Another approach if you need to process entire script:

<?php
// At the beggining...
ob_start();    
$content="";
$normalout=true;

// ... do some stuff ...

// i guess if some condition is true...
$content=ob_get_clean();
$normalout=false;
header( "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" );
header( "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=spreadsheet.xls" );
echo 'First Name' . "\t" . 'Last Name' . "\t" . 'Phone' . "\n";
echo 'John' . "\t" . 'Doe' . "\t" . '555-5555' . "\n";

// Here you could die() or continue...
ob_start();

// ... rest of execution ...

$content.=ob_get_clean();
if($normalout)
{
    echo($content);
} else {
      // Excel provided no output.
}
?>

This should work.

edited Jun 3, 2014 at 14:16

answered Jun 3, 2014 at 11:31

ZeroWorks

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8 Comments

user3382722 Over a year ago

Hi, thanks for reply. Yes, the thing is that i do have other content, i guess that is why i get excel file with the html code. :(

ZeroWorks Over a year ago

Just put ob_start(); before sending anything, and then ob_get_flush(); before the header and it will work.

user3382722 Over a year ago

like ob_start(); header( "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" ); header( "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=spreadsheet.xls" ); echo 'First Name' . "\t" . 'Last Name' . "\t" . 'Phone' . "\n"; echo 'John' . "\t" . 'Doe' . "\t" . '555-5555' . "\n"; ob_get_flush();?

user3382722 Over a year ago

unfortunately, it doesnt help. :(

user3382722 Over a year ago

Hi, what i get now in excel is the two testing lines, and also the entire site's source code, if i dont put a die() after echo.

|

AleksanderKseniya · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-03 11:36:07Z

1

That code seems to work on Chrome without any issue (using php tags, of course).

Here you have a template, anyway, that I use for exporting POST tables that are being sent.

<?php
        header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
        header("Expires: 0");
        $date = date('Y-m-d-Hi');
        header("content-disposition: attachment;filename=Excel_Report_$date.xls");
        $table = $_POST["table_info"];
?>

<html>
        <head>
                <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
        </head>
        <body>
                <table>
                        <tr><th>&nbsp;</th></tr>
                        <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
                        <?=$table?>
                </table>
        </body>
</html>

If you are exporting some reports that would require some more detail, I would recommend PHPExcel as by far the best library out there for CSV/XML/XLS(X) management via PHP code.

answered Jun 3, 2014 at 11:36

AleksanderKseniya

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2 Comments

user3382722 Over a year ago

Hi, thanks for reply. The app has other content, in header and container, so i guess thats why i get an excel with html code, instead of the testing data.

AleksanderKseniya Over a year ago

Probably that's the cause, or maybe that it isn't formatting your html info as a table. However, your plain code does works here. Good luck.

mHouses · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-03 11:38:37Z

0

You are sending a file that is a tab-sepparated values, not an XLS (which is a binary format).

What you can do is send the file as a CSV (Content-type="text/csv"), and the file formatted as csv:

header("Content-Type: text/csv");
header("content-disposition: attachment;filename=my_document.csv");
echo '"First Name";"Last Name";"Phone"' . "\n";
echo '"John";"Doe";"555-123456"' . "\n";

answered Jun 3, 2014 at 11:38

mHouses

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4 Comments

user3382722 Over a year ago

Hi, thanks for help! A little bit better, at least i see the testing data, but still I see the whole source code in the excel file. :(

mHouses Over a year ago

try putting a "die" after the last echo. It could be that your application is sending more content after the csv.

user3382722 Over a year ago

yes, it works. But it is not optimal to put a die() there, right

mHouses Over a year ago

@user3382722 Maybe it isn't optimal to put a die() there, but you MUST do something to stop the script or, at least, to stop sending more data to the client.

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