Table of Contents
Inside this article we will see the concept of CodeIgniter 4 Export MySQL Table Data into CSV File format. Article contains the classified information about this topic. You will get the whole idea to dump your database data into CSV file.
If we have an application which basically built for reporting then we need some kind of function which export tabular data into CSV format.
In this article we will export data from table employees. Employees table will have the columns and their attributes as –
- id [INTEGER]
- name [STRING]
- email [STRING]
- mobile [STRING]
Learn More –
- CakePHP 4 How To Seed Specific Database Seeder Tutorial
- CakePHP 4 How To Set Dynamic Page Title Tutorial
- CakePHP 4 How To Use Application Environment Variables
- CakePHP 4 How To Use Named Route Tutorial
Let’s get started.
CodeIgniter 4 Installation
To create a CodeIgniter 4 setup run this given command into your shell or terminal. Please make sure composer should be installed.
$ composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter codeigniter-4
Assuming you have successfully installed application into your local system.
.env Setup
When we install CodeIgniter 4, we will have env file at root. To use the environment variables means using variables at global scope we need to do env to .env
Either we can do via renaming file as simple as that. Also we can do by terminal command.
Open project in terminal
$ cp env .env
Above command will create a copy of env file to .env file.
Now we are ready to use environment variables.
Create Database
To create a database, either we can create via Manual tool of PhpMyadmin or by means of a mysql command.
We will use MySQL command to create database. Run this command into Sql tab of PhpMyAdmin.
CREATE DATABASE codeigniter4_app;
Successfully, we have created a database.
Database Connection
Open .env file from project root.
Search for DATABASE. You should see the connection environment variables into it. Put your updated details of database connection string.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------- # DATABASE #-------------------------------------------------------------------- database.default.hostname = localhost database.default.database = codeigniter4_app database.default.username = root database.default.password = root database.default.DBDriver = MySQLi database.default.DBPrefix =
Now, database successfully connected with the application.
Create Migration
To create table, we will create a migration file. Open project into terminal and run this spark command.
$ php spark make:migration create_employees_table
It will create a file with name 2021-08-12-041623_CreateEmployeesTable.php inside /app/Database/Migrations folder.
Open migration file and write this code into it.
<?php namespace App\Database\Migrations; use CodeIgniter\Database\Migration; class CreateEmployeesTable extends Migration { public function up() { $this->forge->addField([ 'id' => [ 'type' => 'INT', 'constraint' => 5, 'unsigned' => true, 'auto_increment' => true, ], 'name' => [ 'type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => '100', 'null' => false ], 'email' => [ 'type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => '50', 'null' => false ], 'mobile' => [ 'type' => 'VARCHAR', 'constraint' => '30', 'null' => false ] ]); $this->forge->addPrimaryKey('id'); $this->forge->createTable('employees'); } public function down() { $this->forge->dropTable('employees'); } }
Run Migration
Back to terminal and run this command to migrate it.
$ php spark migrate
It will create employees table in database.
Let’s consider Test data into table.
Sample Data Rows
Here,
We will insert some fake rows into table. There are multiple ways to insert fake rows – Using Seeder, Using Raw Query.
We will dump fake employees using a mysql query into employees table.
-- -- Dumping data for table `employees` -- INSERT INTO `employees` (`id`, `name`, `email`, `mobile`) VALUES (1, 'Sanjay Kumar', 'sanjay@gmail.com', '1234567895'), (2, 'Ashish Kumar', 'ashish@gmail.com', '7412589635'), (3, 'Vijay Kumar', 'vijay@gmail.com', '9632587410'), (4, 'Dhananjay Negi', 'dj@gmail.com', '8529637410'), (5, 'Ajit Kumar', 'ajit@gmail.com', '9658741230'), (6, 'Suman Yadav', 'suman@gmail.com', '2635897410'), (7, 'Mandeep Singh', 'mandeep@gmail.com', '8526937410'), (8, 'Sourav Sukhla', 'sukhla.sourav@gmail.com', '8974563210'), (9, 'Raman Singh', 'raman001@gmail.com', '8596347158'), (10, 'Suneel Rana', 'suneel@gmail.com', '1547896304'), (11, 'Vikram Singh', 'vikram@gmail.com', '8526934710');
You will see, table will look like this after successful insertion.

Now, we need to dump these data into CSV format. You can consider your own data in application.
Create Model
To create a model, run this spark command into terminal.
$ php spark make:model Employee --suffix
It will create EmployeeModel.php inside /app/Models folder. Open file and write this complete code into it.
<?php namespace App\Models; use CodeIgniter\Model; class EmployeeModel extends Model { protected $DBGroup = 'default'; protected $table = 'employees'; protected $primaryKey = 'id'; protected $useAutoIncrement = true; protected $insertID = 0; protected $returnType = 'array'; protected $useSoftDelete = false; protected $protectFields = true; protected $allowedFields = [ 'name', 'email', 'mobile' ]; // Dates protected $useTimestamps = false; protected $dateFormat = 'datetime'; protected $createdField = 'created_at'; protected $updatedField = 'updated_at'; protected $deletedField = 'deleted_at'; // Validation protected $validationRules = []; protected $validationMessages = []; protected $skipValidation = false; protected $cleanValidationRules = true; // Callbacks protected $allowCallbacks = true; protected $beforeInsert = []; protected $afterInsert = []; protected $beforeUpdate = []; protected $afterUpdate = []; protected $beforeFind = []; protected $afterFind = []; protected $beforeDelete = []; protected $afterDelete = []; }
Create Controller
Next, we need to create a controller file
$ php spark make:controller Data --suffix
It will create a file DataController.php at /app/Controllers folder.
Open DataController.php and write this complete code into it.
<?php namespace App\Controllers; use App\Controllers\BaseController; use App\Models\EmployeeModel; class DataController extends BaseController { public function downloadCSVReport() { $empObject = new EmployeeModel(); $employees = $empObject->findAll(); header('Content-Type: text/csv; charset=utf-8'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=employees-' . date("Y-m-d-h-i-s") . '.csv'); $output = fopen('php://output', 'w'); fputcsv($output, array('Id', 'Name', 'Email', 'Mobile')); if (count($employees) > 0) { foreach ($employees as $employee) { $employee_row = [ $employee['id'], ucfirst($employee['name']), $employee['email'], $employee['mobile'] ]; fputcsv($output, $employee_row); } } } }
Add Route
Open Routes.php from /app/Config folder and add this route into it.
//... $routes->get('download-csv','DataController::downloadCSVReport'); //...
Application Testing
Open project terminal and start development server via command:
$ php spark serve
URL: http://localhost:8080/download-csv
When you hit above URL, it will download a CSV file with name employees-{datetime}.csv

We hope this article helped you to learn about CodeIgniter 4 Export MySQL Table Data into CSV File Tutorial in a very detailed way.
Online Web Tutor invites you to try Skillshike! Learn CakePHP, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Node Js, MySQL, Authentication, RESTful Web Services, etc into a depth level. Master the Coding Skills to Become an Expert in PHP Web Development. So, Search your favourite course and enroll now.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for PHP & it’s framework, WordPress, Node Js video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.