exporting a csv file in PHP and JavaScript

Question

I'm trying to implement a tool to export data from a research website as a csv file. In my download controller, I have:

public function export(){
    $data = array(
          array('Name', 'Age', 'City'),
          array('Philippe', '23', 'Palo Alto'),
          array('John', '30', 'San Francisco'),
          array('Paul', '20', 'Los Angeles')
    );

    header('Content-type: text/csv; charset=utf-8');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=data.csv');

    $fp = fopen('php://output', 'w');
    foreach( $data as $line ) {
        fputcsv( $fp, $line );
    }
    fclose($fp);
}

and from my view, I do:

function download() {
     $('#download').empty().html('<img src="<?php echo base_url();?>/images/loader.gif" />');
     $.post('<?php echo base_url();?>/index.php/download/export');
}

and download() is fired up when the user click to a button with a onclick='download()'. However, I'm not seen the file being downloaded, nor a error message. When I look into my firebug console, I see:

200 OK 29ms jquery.min.js (line 4) HeadersPostResponseCookies

Name,Age,City Philippe,23,"Palo Alto" John,30,"San Francisco" Paul,20,"Los Angeles"

What am I missing? Thanks

Chris Hanson · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-15 21:06:16Z

3

You don't actually want an AJAX request here. You want to redirect your user to the file with:

window.location = '<?php echo base_url();?>/index.php/download/export';

The AJAX request is telling the server to send the data back to the script's success method. Since it's a download, the redirect won't make you leave the page so you can use this method without confusing your user.

answered Aug 15, 2012 at 21:06

Chris Hanson

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