PHP Export Array/Table as CSV from another page - php

Question

Foreward: beginner PHP here.
I have a large table I have created on a page that is dynamically created from user defined settings. It is about 1600 rows and 15 columns. I have also populated an array with this data where Key 0 = All the values of row 1 separated by commas. Key 1 = all the values of row 2 separated by commas.
The Array was populated from a loop as the table was created and has the name/structure:
$CSVOut[$CSVKey]
I have confirmed the array is populated and displaying properly on the first page.
I have a button that calls 'textexport.php' with the following code:
<?php
header("Content-type: text/csv");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=file.csv");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
outputCSV(array(
array("name 1", "age 1", "city 1"),
array("name 2", "age 2", "city 2"),
array("name 3", "age 3", "city 3")
));
function outputCSV($data) {
$output = fopen("php://output", "w");
foreach ($data as $row) {
fputcsv($output, $row); // here you can change delimiter/enclosure
}
fclose($output);
}
?>
The sample array in TestExport.php accurately exports a CSV of the hardcoded array. I have searched and tried multiple ways for multiple days on how to get the array $CSVOut from my first page to this page and use the function to populate my CSV but it is not coming together for me.
I've tried POST methods (I've been able to successfully POST other user variables on this page so I kind of understand how it works) and tried SESSIONS (but don't fully grasp this concept yet)
I have a couple questions:
1) How bad of a method is this to try and export a dynamically created html table as a CSV?
2) What would be the best (easiest?) method?
3) Anybody have some guidance/example on how to do this?
4) Is it possible to do it in reverse - just call this function on the first page with the populated array?
For everything else in this project I've been able to find existing examples to adapt for my project but I haven't been able to really get this one right. Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

If you don't want to (or don't have time to) bother with back end data storage and user sessions the best solution may simply be to use JavaScript/jQuery to slice and dice the dynamic output that the user has created into a CSV formatted string that the user can copy and paste out. Simply grabbing the table that they have made and processing each row should suffice...using jQuery will make it easier.
var rows = $('#example tbody').find('tr');
var output_string = '';
rows.each(function() {
var column_data = jQuery.map( $(this).find('td'), function(datum) {
return $(datum).text().replace(/\s/gi,'');
});
output_string += column_data.join(',')+'\n';
});
$('#output').val(output_string);
The above code will grab the body portion of an HTML table (ignoring any table headings you have defined) and turn each table row into a line of comma-separated values terminated with a newline.
It then dumps the created output into a textarea.
JSFiddle Example
This is not as fancy as temporarily saving the content to Mongo/MySQL and serving it back to the user with the click of a button - but it can be done quickly and without having to sort out data storage, sessions, authentication, etc. However those are fairly common parts of a full web stack so I suggest you take some time to familiarize yourself with them at some point. Here are some useful links.
Wamp or XAMPP are full service PHP,MySQL and Apache stacks which are great for getting up and running with Development without wasting a lot of time fiddling with server configs.
And here is a basic explanation/tutorial of Sessions in PHP. Also consider a little light reading, there are many security pitfalls that starting PHP Developers can fall into and this book covers the most avoidable ones.