PHP Export Excel to specific Path? - php

Question

Is it possible to export a PHP MySQL Excel sheet to a specified path such as USB Flash Drive.
Its because I'm using php as Point of Sale and all What i want now is once you click on a Button- it will collects records from MySQL database and exports it as excel or csv file to a USB Flash Drive.
I've tried to Google it out, but I can't seem to find anything.
Thank You.

Answer 1

You need to write the file. To write to usb drive you just need to specify correct file path. If you're on *nix it would be like /media/USB/ on linux or /Volumes/USB/ on Mac. For Windows it would be like F:/.
so rough example is like
$a = array('1','2','3'); //This is imaginable row from MySQL
$f = fopen('F:/mycsv.csv', 'w');
fputcsv($f, $a);
fclose($f);
Manual for fputcsv is here.
If needed, you can ask user for a file path in any way supported by your application.

Answer 2

Not a simple process to save it as excel, but relatively straightforward to write a csv.
$temp = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(),'tmp');
$handle = fopen($temp,'w');
$query = $pdo->prepare("select * from table");
$query->execute();
$row=$statement->fetch();
$keys=array_keys($row);
header('Content-Type: text/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=export_'.date('dmY').'.csv');
fputcsv($handle,$keys);
while($row){
fputcsv($handle,$row);
$row=$statement->fetch();}
echo file_get_contents($temp);
fclose($handle);
This creates a temporary file in your temp folder, you write the csv to that and then give it csv headers and echo it out which gives the user a save file box.
I call $row once before the loop to get the table columns with array_keys and output those first and then loop through with a while calling $row=$statement->fetch() at the end of the loop.