I’m writing a CSV file in PHP using fputcsv($file, $data).
It all works, however I can’t just open it in Excel but have to import it and specify the encoding and which delimiter to use (in a wizard).
I’ve seen exports from other websites that open correctly just by clicking on them and now would like to know what I should do to my file to achieve that.
I tried using this library: http://code.google.com/p/parsecsv-for-php/
But I couldn’t even get it to run and am not really confident if it would really help me…
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Answer
Despite the “C=comma” in CVS, Excel uses your locale native separator. So supposing fputcsv always uses a comma, it won’t work, if your locale separator is for example a semicolon.
What Google AdSense does, when you click “Export to Excel CSV”, is that it uses Tab as a separator. And that works.
To replicate that, set the third parameter (delimiter) of fputcsv to override the default comma. E.g. for Tab use: fputcsv($handle, $fields, "t");
Compare the format of the CSV that works for you against the one generated by fputcsv.
Consider including example of both in your question. You might get better answers.