How can a CSV file be generated in a format that is readable by Excel using PHP?

To generate a CSV file in a format that is readable by Excel using PHP, you can use the fputcsv function to write data to the file in comma-separated format. Make sure to set the appropriate headers to indicate that the file is a CSV and force the browser to download it. Additionally, you can include column headers in the CSV file to make it easier to read in Excel. 

```php
<?php
// Data to be written to the CSV file
$data = [
    ['Name', 'Age', 'Email'],
    ['John Doe', 30, 'john.doe@example.com'],
    ['Jane Smith', 25, 'jane.smith@example.com'],
];

// File name
$filename = 'data.csv';

// Set headers to force download
header('Content-Type: text/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '"');

// Open file for writing
$fp = fopen('php://output', 'w');

// Write data to the CSV file
foreach ($data as $row) {
    fputcsv($fp, $row);
}

// Close the file
fclose($fp);
```

This code snippet generates a CSV file with sample data containing name, age, and email fields. The headers are set to force the browser to download the file, and the data is written to the file using fputcsv. The file is then closed after writing the data.

Keywords

CSV Excel PHP file generation data formatting

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