Symfony return a response to export excel

Question

How do I return a response in Symfony that will output an excel file? I am getting an error that I must return a response and it needs to be in a string correct? Help!

 $excel = new PHPExcel();

 $excel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
 $excel->getActiveSheet()
        ->setCellValue('A1', 'hi');

 $objWriter = \PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($excel, 'Excel2007');
 $objWriter->save(str_replace('.php', '.xlsx', __FILE__));

 return $objWriter;

Error:

The controller must return a response (Object(PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007) given).

Answer 1

Controller must return an instance of Response class, so do the following:

ob_start();
$objWriter->save('php://output');

return new Response(
    ob_get_clean(),  // read from output buffer
    200,
    array(
        'Content-Type' => 'application/vnd.ms-excel',
        'Content-Disposition' => 'attachment; filename="doc.xls"',
    )
);

If you use Excel 2007 or upper set content type to "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet" and file extension to xlsx .

Answer 2

In my case, I've got a route and a controller to export an XLS generated (in my case a button access the route and returns the XLS file)

Also, I read a already generated and stored file, but it should work even if you're not storing the file, you should just use the $objWriter; in this line

$response = $this->get('phpexcel')->createStreamedResponse($writer);

Also, I'm not using the Response object that VisioN indicated I should.

The Action:

public function exportAction() {
    $readerObject = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createReader('Excel5');
    $phpExcelObject = $readerObject->load('files/downloads/reports/' . $this->getUser()->getName() . '.xls');
    $writer = $this->get('phpexcel')->createWriter($phpExcelObject, 'Excel5');
    $response = $this->get('phpexcel')->createStreamedResponse($writer);
    $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'text/vnd.ms-excel; charset=utf-8');
    $response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', 'attachment;filename=' . $this->getUser()->getName() . '.xls');
    $response->headers->set('Pragma', 'public');
    $response->headers->set('Cache-Control', 'maxage=1');

    return $response;
}

Please note, 'Excel5' is for XLS files, if you desire XLSX files you should replace those with 'Excel2007'

Answer 3

Another example using the request symfony component:

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

/**
 * Create a zip file with excel contain the list of clubs.
 *
 * @param Request $request
 * @param $the_response_excel_file
 * @param $the_file_name
 */
public function exportAction(Request $request, $the_response_excel_file, $the_file_name)
{
    // adding headers
    $dispositionHeader = $response->headers->makeDisposition(
        ResponseHeaderBag::DISPOSITION_ATTACHMENT,
        $filename
    );
    $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'text/vnd.ms-excel; charset=utf-8');
    $response->headers->set('Pragma', 'public');


    $response->headers->set('Cache-Control', 'maxage=1');
    $response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', $dispositionHeader);

    return $response;
}