Export to excel using PHP and Jquery

In order to export MySQL table data to excel let's create a HTML page and put two anchor tags, one is to export to excel and the other to export to CSV (Comma Seperated Value). Write a jquery function to submit the form which makes call to the PHP function to export data returned to excel.

HTML Page

<form id="site" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <div>
    <a id="studentsExportExcel" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="exportExcel(this)">Export to excel (.xls)</a>
    <a id="studentsExportCSV" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="exportExcel(this)">Export to csv</a>
  </div>
  <input type="hidden" value="" id="hidden-type" name="studentsExportType"/>
</form>

Jquery

$(document).ready(function () {
	function exportExcel(obj) {
    	var target = $(obj).attr('id');
    	switch (target) {
        case 'studentsExportExcel':
        case 'studentsExportCSV':
            $('#hidden-type').val(target);
            $('#site').submit();
            $('#hidden-type').val('');
            break;
    	}
	}
});

PHP Function

public function students()
    {
        if(isset($_POST["studentsExportType"]))
        {
            switch($_POST["studentsExportType"])
            {
                case "studentsExportExcel" :
                    // Submission from
                    $filename = "students". date('dMY') .".xls";       
                    header("Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
                    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$filename\"");
                    students_export_excel();
                    $_POST["studentsExportType"] = '';
                    exit();
                case "studentsExportCSV":
                    $filename = "students". date('dMY') . ".csv";
                    header("Content-type: application/csv");
                    header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$filename\"");
                    header("Pragma: no-cache");
                    header("Expires: 0");

                    $handle = fopen('php://output', 'w');
                    $data = get_students();
                    foreach ($data as $data)
                    {
                        fputcsv($handle, $data);
                    }
                    fclose($handle);
                    exit();
                default :
                    die("Unknown action : ".$_POST["action"]);
                    break;
            }
        }
    }


function students_export_excel()
    {
        $heading = false;
        $students = get_students();
        
        if(!empty($students))
          foreach($students as $row) {
            if(!$heading) {
              // display field/column names as a first row
              echo implode("\t", array_keys($row)) . "\n";
              $heading = true;
            }
            echo implode("\t", array_values($row)) . "\n";
          }
        exit;
    }


function get_students()
{
        $servername = "localhost";
        $username = "username";
        $password = "password";
        $dbname = "myDB";
 
        // Create connection
        $conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
        // Check connection
        if ($conn->connect_error) {
            die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
        }
 
        $sql = "SELECT id, firstname, lastname FROM students";
        $result = $conn->query($sql);
 
        return $result;
}