I have been trying to export a search result to an Excel file (type .xls), before this, I have been using purely PHP and it works.
However, my client requests to have "live search" effect, so I have to shift to AJAX.
Here is the starting point: User clicks "Export" button, and in the javascript (in the main php file viewdata.php):
<script src='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js'></script>
....
$(document).ready(function () {
var guid = <?php echo $guid ?>;
var date = document.getElementById("cbXDate").value;
var key = document.getElementById("cbsearch").value;
console.log("GUID: '" + guid + "', Date: '" + date + "' Key: '" + key + "'");
$.post("export_contacts.php",
{ sGuid: guid, sDate: date, sKey: key },
function () { console.log("Complete"); } );
});
cbXDate is an input field of type date to let user choose a date from whence to export the data, and cbsearch is a text input field to include a search keyword. console commands are added to see where the code execution has went through.
in the export_contact.php:
<?php
echo '<script> console.log("Export PHP activated."); </script>';
?>
I removed the PHP MySQL data selection code just to debug the problem (full source code below).
Problem is: export_contacts.php is never called. The "Export PHP activated" message never popped up in the console. The console only displayed the data values and "Completed", i.e. export_contacts.php was never called.
Output:
GUID: '0001', Date: '2021-08-01' Key: 'Jo'
Complete
Out of curiosity, I replaced $.post(...) with $("#export_div").load(...) and the console message showed up:
$(document).ready(function () {
var guid = <?php echo $guid ?>;
var date = document.getElementById("cbXDate").value;
var key = document.getElementById("cbsearch").value;
console.log("GUID: '" + guid + "', Date: '" + date + "' Key: '" + key + "'");
$("#export_div").load("export_contacts.php",
{ sGuid: guid, sDate: date, sKey: key },
function () { console.log("Complete"); } );
});
Output:
GUID: '0001', Date: '2021-08-01' Key: 'Jo'
Export PHP activated.
Complete
But this is not what I want, I want to write the output to a file, not display them in a div in the webpage. However, the data shown in the "export_div" div is correct, but the header part is not running, I know the quirkyness in header() calls, but I didn't output anything before the header() calls (unless output from the calling viewdata.php file also count?), here is the full export_contacts.php source code:
<?php
include("./php/auth.php");
$guid = $_POST['sGuid'];
$date = $_POST['sDate'];
$skey = $_POST['sKey'];
$searchKey = $_POST['sKey'];
if($searchKey == "")
{
$skey = "'%'";
}
else
{
$skey = "'%".$searchKey."%'";
}
$sql = "SELECT *, FROM_UNIXTIME(ROUND((date / 1000), 0) + 46800) AS date
FROM contacts
WHERE owner = '$guid' AND contact <> ''
AND (contact LIKE $skey OR name LIKE $skey) ";
if(!empty($date))
{
"AND date >= '$date' ";
}
$sql .= "ORDER BY contact;";
if($result = mysqli_query($link, $sql))
{
$columnHeader = '';
$columnHeader = "Owner" . "\t" . "Contact" . "\t" . "Name" . "\t" . "SaveDate" . "\t";
$setData = '';
while($rows = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$rowData = '';
foreach ($rows as $value)
{
$value = '"' . $value . '"' . "\t";
$rowData .= $value;
}
$setData .= trim($rowData) . "\n";
}
// in case of .load() used,
// code works up until this point
// code doesn't work since here...
header("Content-type: application/xls");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=contact_".$guid.".xls");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
echo ucwords($columnHeader) . "\n" . $setData . "\n";
// until here
// this will show in console in case of .load() used
echo '<script> console.log("Export PHP activated."); </script>';
die();
}
else
{
echo "<script>window.alert('ERROR: '".mysqli_error($link).")</script>";
}
include("./php/cleanup.php");
?>
This code is working in the pure PHP version. I don't know why this header() part isn't working in here, could be due to its output got redirected to the div?
To make things clear, my question is: "Why $.post(...) isn't calling the PHP file, while $("#export_div").load(...) did?".
The header() part is just a sub question, and is fine if it's ignored.
