how can I download a table on mysql database using a PHP page?

You have three options
1. CSV
2. XML
3. Library that handles Excel files.

I personally use XML - it is more versatile than CSV and not as top heavy as the libraries out there.

How does it work.

1. Make an Excel mockup of the data you want to export to Excel
2. Save it as an XML file
3. Make header and footer files from the XML by taking out the top part of the document (to the start of the table) and the bottom part (from the end of the table to the end of the document)
4. Take a sample row from the document - this becomes your template.

When you are outputing your file
1. Output the header (either to a temporary file or read it into a string)
2. Loop through your data and use the template to create the rows - add to the file / string from 2
3. Output your footer as above
4. Setup your headers to tell the browser you are sending an attachment (calc filesize and set name here)
5. die / exit

Sample

	
$output = file_get_contents('xmxls_header.php');
foreach($rows as $row) {
  $output .= <<< XML
    <Row>
      <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">' . $row['firstname'] . '</Data></Cell>
      <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">' . $row['lastname'] . '</Data></Cell>
    </Row>
XML;
}	
$output .= file_get_contents('xmxls_footer.php');
$filename = "My-secret-data-". date('Y-m-d-H-i-s') . ".xml";
header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate"); // HTTP/1.1
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // Date in the past
header("Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
header("Content-Length: " . strlen($output));
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=".$filename);
die($output);

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Dear Julian, I need to export it to Excel :(

That is exactly what I explained how to do.

Excel will recognise and open an XML file.

If that does not work for you your only option is to use one of the PHP libraries that handles Excel documents for you.

how can I download mysql table as Excel using PHP page?  I know how to export as csv. But i need to export it as excel.

Hi,

You can use Datatables that have this options with no need to code anything.
https://datatables.net/extensions/buttons/examples/initialisation/export.html

If you don't want to display the table it is easy to customize and keep only the export features.

otherwise the @Julian methods are very good too.

Thanks