PHP output CSV

[raouleduke]

What is the best way for me to export a CSV file using a query in PHP?

[rebelo]

Exporting csv files?? I don't know that there is a way to do this (though I may very well just not know about it). If you want to import CSV files INTO php, you can use fgetcsv, but theres nothing to export them (at least not natively).

I checked the PEAR project to see if anyone had written a third-party class library for csv interaction, but there's nothing there either. Looks like a tough one.

[swr]

Actually, outputing CSV is pretty easy. The following is untested but in theory, it should work...

$delimiter = ','; // delimiter is sometimes ; or | instead
$quote = '"'; // quote is sometimes ' instead

$result = mysql_query($your_query) or die(mysql_error());

header("Content-type: text/csv");

while ($record = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
    $first = true;
    foreach ($record as $field) {
        if (!$first) echo $delimiter;
        $field = str_replace($quote, $quote.$quote, $field); // escape quotes
        echo $quote.$field.$quote;
        $first = false;
    }
    echo "\n";
}