How to Export from PHP to Excel (xlsx) - php

Question

I am trying to export to an xlsx file from a MSSQL query in PHP. I don't have access to the servers that my website is hosted on so i can't use anything that isn't already built into PHP. I'm using PHP 5.4. So far I've created a <a></a> that references a php page that should pull data from my MSSQL DB. Instead it gives me a blank file, in xls format. When I open it it throws an error about not having a stylesheet.css file in the downloads folder then opens a blank xls workbook. Here's my ExportToExcel.php file:
$tsql = "select ID, TableName, UpdateDate from pmdb.TableUpdates order by UpdateDate";
//echo $tsql . "<br>";
$getqueries = $conn->query($tsql);
//echo "<BR>";
//var_dump($getqueries);
$result = $getqueries->fetchALL(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
$filename = "TableUpdates";
//var_dump($tsql);
header("Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename.xls");
/*******Start of Formatting for Excel*******/
//define separators (defines columns in excel & tabs in word)
$sep = "\t"; //tabbed character
$br = "\r\n"; //line break
//start of printing column names as names of SQL fields
//$max = sqlsrv_num_fields($result);
/* for ($i = 0; $i < $max; $i++) {
echo sqlsrv_field_metadata($result,$i) . "\t";
}
print("\n"); */
foreach( sqlsrv_field_metadata( $result ) as $fieldMetadata ) {
foreach( $fieldMetadata as $name => $value) {
echo "$value" . $sep;
}
}
echo $br;
//end of printing column names
//start while loop to get data
while($row = sqlsrv_fetch($result))
{
$schema_insert = "";
for($j=0; $j<sqlsrv_num_fields($result);$j++)
{
if(!isset($row[$j]))
$schema_insert .= "NULL".$sep;
elseif ($row[$j] != "")
$schema_insert .= "$row[$j]".$sep;
else
$schema_insert .= "".$sep;
}
$schema_insert = str_replace($sep."$", "", $schema_insert);
$schema_insert = preg_replace("/\r\n|\n\r|\n|\r/", " ", $schema_insert);
$schema_insert .= "\t";
print(trim($schema_insert));
print "\n";
}
I got most of this from other questions, but none of them had an answer either.
EDIT
I have gotten a little further. I can now print the data to excel, though it still throws the errors
The file format and extension of . . . don't match . . .
and
Problems During Load: Missing file: C:\Users\username\Downloads\StyleSheet.css
,but everything prints in one column. It is comma separated, but all values are in the same column. Here's the new portion of the code:
//define separators (defines columns in excel & tabs in word)
$sep = ","; //tabbed character
$br = "<br>"; //line break
$hsql = "select Headings from TableHeadings where TableName = 'TableUpdates' order by ID";
$getHeadings = $conn->query($hsql);
$rHeadings = $getHeadings->fetchALL(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
$headings = array($rHeadings[0]["Headings"],$rHeadings[1]["Headings"],$rHeadings[2]["Headings"]);
//start of printing column names as names of SQL fields
foreach($headings as $Heading => $value)
{
echo "$value" . $sep;
}
echo $br;
for ($i = 0;$i < 3;$i++)
{
for($l = 0;$l < 3;$l++)
{
if ($l == 0)
{
echo $result[$i]["ID"] . $sep;
}
elseif ($l == 1)
{
echo $result[$i]["TableName"] . $sep;
}
else
{
echo $result[$i]["UpdateDate"];
}
}
echo $br;
}
How can I get this to echo each value and then move to the next cell? It does have commas, but looks like this:
ID,TableName,UpdateDate,
1,pmdb.MaterialTracking,2016-07-08 13:45:05.963
2,pmdb.OSP_OPR_Report,2016-07-08 13:45:45.883
3,pmdb.COEI_OPR_Report,2016-07-08 13:45:47.920

Answer 1

I have fixed the header so that Excel knows that it's a csv file that it's opening. I no longer get either error.
header("Content-Type: application/x-csv");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename.csv");
I still don't have any other libraries, so there is not going to be any formatting, just a csv file.