Question

I’d like to add a link for users to download data in .CSV format.

I can format data with PHP, but how do I make the file available to download (click and start downloading) instead of opening it in a browser?

Answer 1

You can force download a file using PHP readfile. You may need to add the appropriate header for your csv (if that’s necessary) e.g.

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

Or to make it simple you can do something like:

 header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="desired_filename.csv"');
 header("Content-Type: text/csv");
 echo 'your formatted content';

It should bring a download dialog. Hope that helps.