Problem exporting to Excel(xls)

[dreeves]

I am having trouble using PHP to export some data to a table. After I am prompted if I want to Open or Save the file (and click open) I receive an error message stating:"The file you are trying to open is in a different format than specified by the file extension. Verify that the file is not corrupted and is from a trusted source before opening the file. Do you want to open the file now?"
I click "yes" and the file opens just fine.

How can I prevent this error message from coming up? What is causing it in the first place? I'm guessing it is something in the header.

<?php
include 'dbinfo.inc.php';
$link= mysql_connect('localhost',$username,$password);
if (!$link) {
 die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
@mysql_select_db($grant_database) or die( "Unable to select database");
 
$Result = $pDate = null;
 
 $Query = "SELECT * from main LIMIT 0,20";
 
 $Result = mysql_query($Query);
 
// For Headings in Excel
$contents="Project Number\tProject Name\tGrant Year\tProject Description\n"; 
 
// Put data records from mysql by while loop.
if($Result)
{
 while($Row=mysql_fetch_array($Result)){
 
 $contents.=$Row['project_number']."\t";
 $contents.=$Row['project_name']."\t";
 $contents.=$Row['grant_year']."\t"; 
 $contents.=$Row['project_description']."\n"; 
 }
}
 
 header("Pragma: public");
 header("Expires: 0");
 header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
 header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
 header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream"); //I tried vnd.ms-excel and it still didn't work
 header("Content-Type: application/download");;
 header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=orderlist.xls ");
 header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary "); 
 
 print_r($contents);
 exit;
 
?> 

[Matthew1980]

Hi there Dreeves,

I'm not too experienced with this area of php but a quick google search found this for me:-

header("Content-Type: application/excel");

As the other version just means binary safe, and the mime type listed for that is .zoo, which incidentally I have never heard of ;-p

Im not saying as this will work, but at least the browser will know whats coming :)

Also, IMHO it's not good to suppress the error messages ie: @mysql_..... if anything, the more info that you can get the better!

[EDIT] Though, depending on how you phrase the question you get different results ;-p I double checked that one!

Good Luck!

Cheers,
MRb