Laravel 4 - Downloading a CSV and returning a true response

Question

I was wondering if someone could help me out.

I have some code which takes an array and puts it into csv format, at the moment, it saves the file to the server, but i want the user to be able to download the csv instead and nothing im trying is working.

Currently my function looks like this

public function postForm() {

    $exportType = Input::get('exportType');
    $data = Session::get('data');

    if ( $exportType == 'csv' ) {

        $fp = fopen('csvExport.csv', 'w');

        foreach( $data as $fields ) {
            fputcsv($fp, $fields);
        }

        fclose($fp);

    } else {

        // Other function here

    }

    return Response::json( array('result' => true) );

}

Can anyone help me out please, any help would be really greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 12 '14 at 06:36

1

If you want the user to download the file - you need to 'return' the file to them as the Response

 return Response::download('csvExport.csv');

answered Oct 12 '14 at 06:36

Laurence

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Hey, i have tried that ... But it just returns the data not any downloading – BigJobbies Oct 12 '14 at 06:49
Are you trying to do it via ajax (I just noticed you were returning JSON before)? You cant download via ajax. – Laurence Oct 12 '14 at 07:43
No, i replaced the return line with what you wrote – BigJobbies Oct 12 '14 at 08:20
But how are you calling the page? What is displayed when you go to the page? – Laurence Oct 12 '14 at 08:24
I am calling the postForm function from an ajax post call – BigJobbies Oct 12 '14 at 08:25
...so when I said "Are you trying to do it via ajax" and you replied "no" - you should have replied "yes". You cannot download via ajax – Laurence Oct 12 '14 at 08:31
1

This answer might help you change the approach: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20830309/download-file-using-an-ajax-request – Laurence Oct 12 '14 at 08:33

Laravel 4 - Downloading a CSV and returning a true response

1 Answers1