Question

I need to run a query that will return multiple rows and export it to a CSV. I have to put the cells in a certain order though.

So lets say my table is laid out id, name, address, wife. I need to build a csv in the order of id, address, wife, name. I figured I could just make an array in the correct order and then make a csv with that but after an hour of googling i cant find out how to make a csv with an array.

There is fputcsv but that requires a pre-made csv. Also, i was hoping there was a codeigniter way of doing it.

 public function export() {
    $this->load->helper('download');

    $data[1] = 'i like pie';
    $data[2] = 'i like cake';
    force_download('result.csv', $data);  
}

I tried that but the error said the download helper file was expecting a string not an array.

Answer 1

Here’s some code I use… you could adjust the columns you need in the export…

Note: This CSV is directly sent to php://output which writes directly to the output buffer. This means you’re not saving any .csv files on the server and it can handle a much larger file size that building a giant array and then trying to loop through it.

    header("Content-type: application/csv");
    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"Jobs_".date('M.j.y', $from)."-".date('M.j.y', $to).".csv\"");
    header("Pragma: no-cache");
    header("Expires: 0");

    $handle = fopen('php://output', 'w');
    fputcsv($handle, array(
        'JobId',
        'Template',
        'Customer',
        'Status',
        'Error',
        'PDF',
        'Run Time',
        'Wait Time',
        'Server'
    ));

    foreach ($jobs as $jobData) {
        fputcsv($handle, array(
            $job->getId(),
            $job->getTemplate(),
            $jobData['customers_firstname'].' '.$jobData['customers_lastname'],
            $status,
            $error,
            $jobData['products_pdfupload'],
            $job->getRunTime(),
            $job->getWaitTime(),
            $jobData['server']
        ));
    }

    fclose($handle);
    exit;

This should give you a good mental picture of how a CSV export works. I don’t use CodeIgniter’s file download helper, so I can’t help you on that front.