Export CSV file using PHP create corrupt file when try to open in MS Excel

Question

I have the following script that will export data from my database using php to csv file. Everything works fine, except when I try to open the file in excel, I get "file is corrupt". When I run this code it shows the error - "The file is corrupted and can not be opened." Thanks in advance!

<?php

// Connection
include_once('conn.php');

$sql = "select * from info";
$qur = mysql_query($sql);

// Enable to download this file
$filename = "sampledata.csv";

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$filename\"");
header("Content-Type: text/csv");

$display = fopen("php://output", 'w');

$flag = false;
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($qur)) {
    if(!$flag) {
      // display field/column names as first row
      fputcsv($display, array_keys($row), ",", '"');
      $flag = true;
    }
    fputcsv($display, array_values($row), ",", '"');
  }

fclose($display);
exit;
?>

Try opening the file in notepad or some other text editor. Does it look like there are any problems? — Jonathan Kuhn
Obligatory: The mysql_ extensions are deprecated, please upgrade to mysqli_ or PDO. — Jay Blanchard
@JonathanKuhn: yes its working with other text editors like notepad, openoffice etc but not in MS Excel. — Riken Shah
@JayBlanchard: I changed to mysqli but still it shows the error when opening the csv file in MS Excel. — Riken Shah
Can you post a sample csv file? The code shown doesn't have any sort of obvious problems. — Jonathan Kuhn

Riken Shah Riken Shah · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-05T06:27:53

I found the answer of my own question. Just need to add the ob_clean() line before we call the headers to download csv file to clear the output buffer. This will solve the error of not opening csv file in excel.

Export CSV file using PHP create corrupt file when try to open in MS Excel

1 Answers