PhpSpreadsheet – Download file instead of saving it

I need to generate an excel file (xls) and trigger the download after it is generated. I found this example in the documentation.

<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use PhpOfficePhpSpreadsheetSpreadsheet;
use PhpOfficePhpSpreadsheetWriterXlsx;

$spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();
$sheet->setCellValue('A1', 'Hello World !');

$writer = new Xlsx($spreadsheet);
$writer->save('hello world.xlsx');

It shows how to create a excel file and save it on the server. How can I serve the result to the client instead and “force” him to download it? I need to get the data of the $writer somehow.

I am currently solving it without PhpSpreadsheet:

// Excel Export 
    $filename = 'export_'.date('d-m-y').'.xls';
    $filename = $validator->removeWhitespace($filename);

    header('Content-type: application/ms-excel');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$filename);
    exit($response["output"]);  // <-- contains excel file content

But it is not working with my delimiter (semicolon). The semicolon is not getting interpreted and everything is getting written into one column.

If I export it as .csv, then it works. But I need it as .xls or .xlsx

Answer

I solved it with a workaround. I temporarily save the file on the server, then I load the content into a variable and serve it as a download file. Then I delete the file from the server.

Workaround:

$date = date('d-m-y-'.substr((string)microtime(), 1, 8));
$date = str_replace(".", "", $date);
$filename = "export_".$date.".xlsx";

try {
    $writer = new Xlsx($response["spreadsheet"]);
    $writer->save($filename);
    $content = file_get_contents($filename);
} catch(Exception $e) {
    exit($e->getMessage());
}

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$filename);

unlink($filename);
exit($content);