Save data to local drive?

Anon

I've got a MySQL database and this produces a list of 30 people with details about them in half a dozen fields.

Nice to look at;

but users want to save to a local drive in CSV format so they can later pop it into Excel.

Saving in CSV format is not a problem. It works fine and when I am working on my test computer it saves OK to C: d: or a: drive.

However once the system is on the Internet, the save function tries to save to the server drives - naturally I suppose.

I have seen a couple of comments on this sort of thing on this board; rather saying that is an impossible thing to do - and I can see some security issues for this.

However it is vital to my users to get these CSV files.

Any ideas as to how I can do it; maybe some tricks I have not thought of.

Would much much appreciate help on this one.

Paul

andrin

What if you create the CSV file on the fly and send it with the correct headers? The user should get a qustion if they want to save the file.

andrin

Found this at Vincent´s FAQ pages :-)

http://www.hvt-automation.nl/yapf/faq.php?cmd=viewitem&itemid=51

Anon

Thanks Andrin for that.

In fact you also lead me to vincent's FAQ pages which I never come across - really good.

Now there are two ways described in the FAQ.

filename = This is good. It works and shows the contents ofthe file that the user then has to save using file>save as.

It must be saved as a text file to prevent the html code coming through to the CSV file. The is OK although if I could avoid the user having to make that decision it would be better. Some of them, teachers, might get a bit blown away by that normous complication :-(

The other way brings up Excel and pops the data into it. Very automatic. However when Excel takes in the CSV data in this way, it pops it all into one cell. You don't get the opening option that asks you what type of delimiters, so it does not use the comma to move to the next cell.

Maybe I should put a tab between the items; but any other ideas?

But basically you have solved my problem. I am over the moon. I know I shall get it right with a bit more work.

Thanks

Paul

andrin

Well I have never done anything you are about to do so I can´t help you anymore :-( I could only direct you to something I thought would help you.

Good Luck and let me know if you succeed. I also want to know :-)

/Andrin

Anon

Yep

Saving to a file in CSV format is fine - but as I said it si mildly complicated for the user.

Opening in Excel works too - but I wonder how I get a tab i the string.
I thought that

sprintf("$s\t$s\t....

should give a tab in between every string put in by the %s.

All the strings are there but no tabs.

In fact I have never found \n to be very good in PHP - I usually end up using <br>.

Any suggestions as to why \t does not give a tab.

I have also tried putting in &#09 - no tab

Paul