Creating a download file of db search results.

Anon

OK, my turn now:

Anyone got a good way of doing this:

I want to be able to offer a download file of the results of a query from my database:

the SELECT statement will be along the lines of:

SELECT COL_A, COL_B, COL_C from MY_TABLE

And I'd like to do a little formatting (have each COL_ output value on a new line, with each record separated by '***' - like so:

COL_A
COL_B
COL_C

So the file I want to offer for download looks like the one above.

I guess I could use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE and then offer that file for the user to download from the server, but I'd like to know if there's a way of offering the search results as a download straight from the webpage, without having to write a local file to the server?

Anon

Did you try to write the document header quite the same way one will do to create a gif-stream?

Anon

Er, no, since I haven't a clue how to do that..
if that's the answer then what kind of coding do I need to use?

I'll have extracted all the information I need from the database, so what do I need to do to spit it out through the browser as the download file?

Anon

I want to implement class.FastTemplete.php3
to run on PHP4?

Anon

It's kinda fuzzy what you want to do. One way to do that is to write to a database and sent it to the browser. I have an example portions used from binaries in database tut.
Here is my modified code with some comments I'm not sure if this works but should give a good idea. It basically runs a Select query that send back data and a mime header, if recognized by the system as text/html/image your browser will display. otherwise it will ask to save it. Optionally write the your output to the database. I'm kinda new to php/mysql so I might be barking up the wrong tree on what you want to do.. anyway heres my psudo code

<?php

$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "whygee", "12web12");
mysql_select_db("my_database",$db);

$tbl_MY_TABLE = mysql_query("SELECT COL_A, COL_B, COL_C from MY_TABLE",$db);

$outString = "***\r";
        while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_row($tbl_MY_TABLE))
        {

        $outString .= "%s\r%s\r%s\r***\r, $myrow[0], $myrow[1], $myrow[2]"; 

        }//end while

//this part you have probably seen before.

mysql_select_db("my_table_data", $db);
// the next portion is optional you can use this if you want to store the current info
// in a database

//I'm not sure how often or the size of your updates or if you wanted to keep a database
//with your log files or exactly your doing with these files.
//if you wanted too you could insert a new entry for everyday and just have people download that file
//for the particular day. so you may want to use a select query to see if the file exists
// If it does do an update of the filename. there are many possibilities

$query = MYSQL_QUERY("INSERT INTO my_table_data (bin_data,filename,filetype) ".
"VALUES ('$outputString','"my_table_data.txt'",'"text\plain"')");

//end optional

$query = "select bin_data,filetype from my_table_data where filename=my_table_info.txt";
$outputdata = MYSQL_QUERY($query);

Header( "Content-type: text\plain");
echo $outputString;