Perl script sends Excel file to browser

[Aidan 12]

Hi Friends
I have a problem regarding my perl program. I am trying this for two weeks but unfortunately did not succeeded. I want to have my web site generate an Ecel file on the fly that is a database export and send it ot the user's web browser. How can I achieve this, does any one have ideas about this or any one has done this before. Please help. Thanks in advance. Waiting for the reply.

[Praetor]

Hello
I assume that you need to export a simple sheet containing strings and numbers, and assume you need no formulas. You have to generate a CSV file (this is a comma separated file) and set the mime type to application or octet stream. I assume that if your perl script is named as exportcsv.pl then the downloaded file will be named exportcsv.pl.xls by default. you can also change the default name but I am not showing this in the example. Go through the following code:

# sending a file simply as an Excel
print "Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=users.csv\n\n";

# alternative 2:
# sending a CSV file and suggesting 'users.csv' as the file name
print "Content-type: application/octet-stream\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=users.csv\n\n";

# now dump the data
# all values are enclosed by " in case the 
# strings contain a comma
# this dumps 2 rows with 2 columns each
print '"1","Test, first one"' . "\n";
print '"2","Test, last one"' . "\n";

[Xmen]

Hi
I am have a slight different problem, but still I am posting it because it is some what related to the topic. I am trying to call a perl script from a javascript which has to generate a CSV file. I even went thorugh the above posted code but it's not working for me. I am posting my code below, see if any one can help or have a solution for this.

function testCSV()
{
alert('Got the data');    
new Ajax.Request(cgiPath+'testCSV.pl',
{
method: 'get',
parameters: {
action: 'createCSV',
    type: 'sample',
    ts: new Date().getTime()
    },
onComplete: function() {
    alert('Created CSV');
    }
});
}
Perl Script
use CGI;
use JSON;
$cgi = new CGI();
$action = $cgi->param('action');
if ($action eq 'createCSV')
{
    createCSV();
}
else
{
    die 'Action not specified';
}
sub createCSV
{
    print 'Content-type: application/octet-stream\n';
    print 'Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=users.csv\n\n';
    print ''1','Test, first one'' . '\n';
    print ''2','Test, last one'' . '\n';
}

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.