Creating an Excel download

In my app I have a function to create an  excel download from the database. I do this using a controller, a helper and a model

Here is my controller, Excel.php

PHP Code:

   public function export_to_excel()
    {
        $this->load->helper('excel/excel_helper');
        $export = create_excel_export();

        $filename = $export['filename'];
        $headers = $export['headers'];
        $data = $export['data'];
        header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=".$filename." ".date("Y-m-d").".xls");
        header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");

        print "$headers\n$data";

} 


Here is my helper, excel_helper.php

PHP Code:

   function create_excel_export()
    {
        $ci = & get_instance();
        $ci->load->model(users_model");
        $users = $ci->users_model->find_users();

        $headers = array("Employee Name", "Employee Email", "Department");

        $title = "";
        $data = "";
        $filename = 'Users';
        foreach($headers as $value) {
                $title .= $value . "\t";
        }
        $headers = trim($title). "\n";

        if (!empty($users)){
            foreach ($users as $row){
                $line = '';
                $employee_name = $row['full_name'];
                $email = $row['email'];
                $dept_name = $row['dept_name'];

                $line .= $employee_name . "\t";
                $line .= $email . "\t";
                $line .= $dept_name . "\t";

                $data .= trim($line). "\n";
            }
        }

        $export = array(
            'filename' => $filename,
            'headers' => $headers,
            'data' => $data
        );

        return $export;
    } 


Here is my model, Users_model.php

PHP Code:

   public function find_users(){
    
        $str = "SELECT * FROM users";

        $query = $this->db->query($str);
        $result = $query->result();

        $users = array();
        foreach ($result as $r){

            $user = array(
                'full_name'     => $r->full_name,
                'email'         => $r->email,
                'dept_name'     => $r->dept_name
                    );

                $users[] = $user;
          }

        }

        return $users;

    } 


While running this does cause an excel file to be downloaded as expected - the browser console report an error - 'Failed to load resource: Frame load interrupted'

I have modified my controller by adding this but it makes no difference

Code:

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false);
header("Content-type: application/x-unknown");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='theFilename.ext'");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: 200000");

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I am using Safari on Mac OSX

Try setting this and see if it works.

Code:

header("Content-Length: 177998"); // you might want to set this

What did you Try? What did you Get? What did you Expect?

Joined CodeIgniter Community 2009.  ( Skype: insitfx )

Tried this and no joy unfortunately. It appears to be a Safari issue as it works on other browsers.

This issue is widely reported on Google but no one has a solution for it. :-(

i'm really new to how this all works. I can read PHP to just a basic level but I heard using codeigniter will help me develop my apps faster, using your code I edited it to the fields in my database. I am lost on how to get the code to execute?
regular PHP you can create a button and link it to the PHP file, I tried that on CI using

<button type="button" class="btn btn-success"
onclick="<?php echo base_url()?>controller/excel">Export</button>

but the button doesn't do anything. Please Help

The html onclick is for executing a javascript function.

What did you Try? What did you Get? What did you Expect?

Joined CodeIgniter Community 2009.  ( Skype: insitfx )

The html onclick is for executing a javascript function.

Thanks for the clarification, but I also tried using a form with the action pointing to the excel.php file but still having no luck.

Sorry for being such an amateur!

Instead of the onclick event use a anchor <a> tag or CI anchor url_helper and set the ref to your controller and method.

What did you Try? What did you Get? What did you Expect?

Joined CodeIgniter Community 2009.  ( Skype: insitfx )

If you are just trying to create a spreadsheet download, consider PHP's built in functions:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.fputcsv.php

Code:

<?php

$list = array (
    array('aaa', 'bbb', 'ccc', 'dddd'),
    array('123', '456', '789'),
    array('"aaa"', '"bbb"')
);

$fp = fopen('file.csv', 'w');

foreach ($list as $fields) {
    fputcsv($fp, $fields);
}

fclose($fp);
?>

I make quite a few CSV files using code similar to this.

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