Php excel SQL to Excel

this php script will write data from php using text from an SQL table (MySQL, supply your own SQL query) to a microsoft excel (.xls) file. The Excel file is specified as such by a set of headers, defining content, using php's header() function.

<?php
//Written by Dan Zarrella. Some additional tweaks provided by JP Honeywell
//pear excel package has support for fonts and formulas etc.. more complicated
//this is good for quick table dumps (deliverables)

include('DB_connection.php');
$result = mysql_query('select * from excel_test', $linkID);
$count = mysql_num_fields($result);

for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++){
$header .= mysql_field_name($result, $i)."\t";
}

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";
}

# This line will stream the file to the user rather than spray it across the screen
header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");

# replace excelfile.xls with whatever you want the filename to default to
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=excelfile.xls");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");

echo $header."\n".$data;
?>