How to force download a .csv file in Symfony 2, using Response object?

Question

I'm making a "Download" controller using Symfony 2, that has the sole purpose of sending headers so that I can force a .csv file download, but it isn't working properly.

$response = new Response();
$response->headers->set('Content-Type', "text/csv");
$response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="'.$fileName.'"');
$response->headers->set('Pragma', "no-cache");
$response->headers->set('Expires', "0");
$response->headers->set('Content-Transfer-Encoding', "binary");
$response->headers->set('Content-Length', filesize($fileName));
$response->prepare();
$response->sendHeaders();
$response->setContent(readfile($fileName));
$response->sendContent();

$fileName is a "info.csv" string. Such are my actions inside my controller, there's no return statement. When I tried returning the Response Object, the contents of the file were displayed in the browser, not my intended result.

The problem I've found is that in some pages I do get my info.csv file, but in anothers all I get is a message:

No webpage was found for the web address: http://mywebpage.com/download Error 6 (net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND): The file or directory could not be found.

I'm completely sure the file exists, so there must be another thing wrong. Also, routing.yml is working correctly, since I do get the file from other pages that also link to that path. The Apache error log doesn't show anything about it.

Has anyone forced the download of a .csv file on Symfony 2 before? If so, what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Here is a minimal example that works just fine in production:

class MyController public function myAction()      $response = $this->render('ZaysoAreaBundle:Admin:Team/list.csv.php',$tplData);      $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'text/csv');     $response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="teams.csv"');      return $response; 

You can replace the render call with new response and response->setContent if you like.

Your comment about no return statement inside a controller is puzzling. Controllers return a response. Let the framework take care of sending the stuff to the browser.

Answer 2

I realize this post is kind of old and that there is, oddly enough, practically no good resources on how to do a CSV Export in symfony 2 besides this post at stackoverflow.

Anyways I used the example above for a client contest site and it worked quite well. But today I received an e-mail and after testing it myself, the code had broken - I was able to get the download working with a small amount of results, but the database now exporting over 31,000 rows it either simply showed the text or with chrome, just basically did nothing.

For anyone having issue with a large data export, this is what I manged to get to work, basically doing what Cerad suggested as an alternate way:

    $filename = "export_".date("Y_m_d_His").".csv";     $response = $this->render('AppDefaultBundle:Default:csvfile.html.twig', array('data' => $data));      $response->setStatusCode(200);     $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'text/csv');     $response->headers->set('Content-Description', 'Submissions Export');     $response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename='.$filename);     $response->headers->set('Content-Transfer-Encoding', 'binary');     $response->headers->set('Pragma', 'no-cache');     $response->headers->set('Expires', '0');      $response->prepare();     $response->sendHeaders();     $response->sendContent(); 

EDIT: After more testing and upping the max seconds allowed, I realized the previous code was printing out the headers at the top so I've updated the code.

Answer 3

THis worked for me to export CSV and JSON.

Twig files are named : export.csv.twig, export.json.twig

The Controller :

class PrototypeController extends Controller {

public function exportAction(Request $request) {

    $data = array("data" => "test");

    $format = $request->getRequestFormat();

    if ($format == "csv") {
        $response = $this->render('PrototypeBundle:Prototype:export.' . $format . '.twig', array('data' => $data));
        $filename = "export_".date("Y_m_d_His").".csv";
        $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'text/csv');
        $response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename='.$filename);

        return $response;
    } else if ($format == "json") {
        return new Response(json_encode($data));
    }
}
}

The Routing :

prototype_export:
    pattern:  /export/{_format}
    defaults: { _controller: PrototypeBundle:Prototype:export, _format: json }
    requirements:
        _format:  csv|json

The Twigs:

export.csv.twig (do your comma seperated thing here, this is just a test)

{% for row in data %}
{{ row }}
{% endfor %} 

export.json.twig (data is sent json_encoded, this file is empty)

Hope this helps!