Script for downloading MySql table in Excel

<?php
ob_start();

// Script for downloading MySql table in Excel

/**
 * @author sapta
 * @copyright 2009
 */

$cdate = date("Y-m-d"); // get current date

// configuration
$mysql_host = '';
$mysql_user = '';
$mysql_pass = '';
$mysql_db 	= '';
$query_string = "select * from sdm";
$export_filename = "exported_table_on_$cdate.xls";


// connect to mysql server
$mysql_link = mysql_connect($mysql_host,$mysql_user,$mysql_pass);
mysql_select_db($mysql_db,$mysql_link);

// query from table
$result = mysql_query($query_string);

$count = mysql_num_fields($result);

// fetch table header
$header = '';
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++){
	$header .= mysql_field_name($result, $i)."\t";
}

// fetch data each row, store on tabular row data
while($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)){
	$line = '';
	foreach($row as $value){
		if(!isset($value) || $value == ""){
			$value = "\t";
		}else{
			# important to escape any quotes to preserve them in the data.
			$value = str_replace('"', '""', $value);
			# needed to encapsulate data in quotes because some data might be multi line.
			# the good news is that numbers remain numbers in Excel even though quoted.
			$value = '"' . $value . '"' . "\t";
		}

		$line .= $value;
	}
	$data .= trim($line)."\n";
}

# this line is needed because returns embedded in the data have "\r"
# and this looks like a "box character" in Excel
$data = str_replace("\r", "", $data);

# Nice to let someone know that the search came up empty.
# Otherwise only the column name headers will be output to Excel.
if ($data == "") {
	$data = "\nno matching records found\n";
}

// create table header showing to download a xls (excel) file
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$export_filename");
header("Cache-Control: public");
header("Content-length: ".strlen($data)); // tells file size
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");

// output data
// echo $header."\n".$data;
echo $data;

?>