How to give path to the file? - php

Question

Hi I want to save the file in excel format in my local folder. For this I am creating an api which will be scheduled to call at every night and save the data in file every night.
My attempt is :
class SaveExcel
{
function SaveExcel()
{
}
function saveData()
{
$file_result = "";
$database = new Database(Constants::DBHOST, Constants::DBUSER, Constants::DBPASS, Constants::DBNAME);
$dbConnection = $database->getDB();
date_default_timezone_set('Asia/Kolkata');
$date = date('m/d/Y h:i:s a', time());
$DB_TBLName = "location"; //MySQL Table Name
$filename = "LocationHistory(" . $date . ")"; //File Name
//create MySQL connection
$stmt = $dbConnection->prepare("Select * from $DB_TBLName");
$stmt->execute();
$columnHeader = '';
$columnHeader = "loc_id" . "\t" . "user_id" . "\t" . "address" . "\t" . "date_time" . "\t";
$setData = '';
while ($rec = $stmt->FETCH(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$rowData = '';
foreach ($rec as $value) {
$value = '"' . $value . '"' . "\t";
$rowData .= $value;
}
$setData .= trim($rowData) . "\n";
}
// file_put_contents('history/' . $filename, $setData);
return ucwords($columnHeader)."\n".$setData."\n";
}
}
?>
By this I am getting the output as :
"Loc_id\tUser_id\tAddress\tDate_time\t\n\"118\"\t\"1\"\t\"19.166488899999997\"\t\"72.8510805\"\t\"16, Aarey Rd, Jay Prakash Nagar, Goregaon East, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400063, India\"\t\"2018-03-03 18:05:45\"\n\"119\"\t\"1\"\t\"19.165215999999997\"\t\"72.8509167\"\t\"MU Chambers, Jay Prakash Nagar, Goregaon West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400063, India\"\t\"2018-03-03 18:22:14\"\n\"120\"\t\"1\"\t\"19.1651942\"\t\"72.85087469999999\"
now I want to save this data in excel format in local folder.
How can I do this?
Please help.. Thank you.
EDIT :
This code is working well.. Now I just want to give the path to the file. Now its getting saved under the project directory I want to get it saved in another directory. How Can I?
$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();
$objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
$rowCount = 1;
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('A'.$rowCount, 'Employee');
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('B'.$rowCount, 'Address');
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('C'.$rowCount, 'Date Time');
$rowCount++;
while($row = $stmt->FETCH(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)){
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('A'.$rowCount, $user_name);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('B'.$rowCount, $row['address']);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->SetCellValue('C'.$rowCount, $row['date_time']);
$rowCount++;
}
$current_date = preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $date);
$objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel);
$name = '/path/to/folder/xyz.xlsx';
$objWriter->save($user_name.$current_date.'.xlsx');
return 'File Saved';

Answer 1

What you are showing here is a TSV (tab-separated values) string, which is readable by Excel, but it's not a full Excel spreadsheet (e.g. you can't have colors etc.). This is good enough for many applications, and it can also be read by any app that reads TSVs (from Notepad++ to LibreOffice), which is an advantage.
However, if you want to create actual Excel files, it's much more difficult. There are libraries out there that do it, like this open-source one: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet

Answer 2

you need to add header of type excel on your code.
$filename = date('m/d/Y h:i:s a', time());
header("Content-Type: application/xls");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename.xls");
application/xls work on < excel 2007. so if get error on excel, you can change that to application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
in other way, PHPExcel is a good plugin to customize your output excel
hope this help you.