Tells the browser the file is a CSV.
// Database connection $pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test", "username", "password"); // Set headers header('Content-Type: text/csv'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="report.csv"'); $output = fopen('php://output', 'w'); // Fetch data using a buffered query $stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT id, name, email FROM users"); $stmt->execute(); // Add Column Headers fputcsv($output, ['ID', 'Name', 'Email']); // Stream rows one by one while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) { fputcsv($output, $row); } fclose($output); Use code with caution. Important Tips for Large Files php export to csv download
To trigger a download instead of saving a file to the server, we open a special output stream: php://output . Complete Code Example Tells the browser the file is a CSV