Question

I have a CSV export script (enrdata_arch.php) which calls information from an existing database and exports it into CSV format. For some reason however, the script returns the following error ONLY in Internet Explorer:

Microsoft Office Excel cannot access the file ‘https://www.domain.com/admin/enrdata_arch.php‘. There are several possible reasons:

• the filename or path does not exist
• the file is being used by another program
• the workbook you are trying to save has the same name as currently open workbook

**

The original script is posted below:

**

<?php

$host = 'localhost';
$user = 'username';
$pass = 'password';
$db = 'db_name';
$table = 'table_name';
$archive = 'archive_name';
$file = 'export';

$link = mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass) or die("Can not connect.".mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($db) or die("Can not connect.");

$result = mysql_query("SHOW COLUMNS FROM ".$table."");
$i = 0;
if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$csv_output .= $row['Field'].", ";
$i++;
}
}
$csv_output .= "\n";

$values = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM ".$table."");
while ($rowr = mysql_fetch_row($values)) {
for ($j=0;$j<$i;$j++) {
$csv_output .= '"'.$rowr[$j].'",'; 
}
$csv_output .= "\n";
}

$filename = $file."_".date("Y-m-d",time());
header("Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
header("Content-disposition: csv" . date("Y-m-d") . ".csv");
header( "Content-disposition: filename=".$filename.".csv");
print $csv_output;

//transfers old data to archive
$transfer = mysql_query('INSERT INTO '.$archive.' SELECT * FROM '.$table) or die(mysql_error());

//empties existing table
$query = mysql_query('TRUNCATE TABLE '.$table) or die(mysql_error());

mysql_close($link);
exit;
?>

It almost seems as if the script is trying to save and open a PHP file only when using IE. Any ideas?

Answer 1

The headings for SSL is a known problem with IE

I use

header ('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT'); // Date in the past
header ('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT'); // always modified
header ('Cache-Control: cache, must-revalidate'); // HTTP/1.1
header ('Pragma: public'); // HTTP/1.0

and it’s the ‘Pragma: public that’s the key for IE/ssl

Content type for a CSV file is

text/csv

or

text/plain

rather than

application/vnd.ms-excel

which is specifically MS Excel .xls speardsheets