Export Report from Code

The report generator allows exporting reports or dashboards to various formats. The table below lists all the available export formats for reports and dashboards:

**Data format

      Reports
    
    
      Dashboards

      CSV (Comma Separated Value)
    
    
      +
    
    
      +

      JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
    
    
      +
    
    
      +

      XML (Extensible Markup Language)
    
    
      +
    
    
      +

      DBF (dBase/FoxPro)
    
    
      +
    
    
      +

      DIF
    
    
      +
    
    
      +

      SYLK (Symbolic Link)
    
    
      +
    
    
      +**

To export a report, you need to use the exportDocument() method of the report object.

index.php

<?php
    use Stimulsoft\Export\Enums\StiExportFormat;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;
    
    $report = new StiReport();
    $report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');
    $report->render();
    $report->exportDocument(StiExportFormat::Pdf);
    $report->printHtml();
?>

Full example code is available on GitHub.

Information

Exporting a report doesn’t automatically trigger the report generation, so for a loaded report template, you must first call the render() method to build the report. For completed documents (already built reports), this method isn’t required.

As arguments for the exportDocument() method, you must specify the desired export format from the StiExportFormat enumeration, and optionally, the export settings. The available formats are listed in the table below:

After exporting the report, the resulting data stream will be sent to the browser for download as a file. The file name and MIME type will be determined automatically. There’s also an option to display the exported report directly in the browser window (only for PDF, HTML, and images) by setting the openAfterExport argument to true.

index.php

<?php
    $report->exportDocument(StiExportFormat::Pdf, null, true);
?>

Exporting a report on the server-side

To switch the report generator to server-side mode, set the report’s engine property to StiEngineType::ServerNodeJS. All other events and methods for working with the report remain the same as when exporting on the client-side. When exporting on the server-side, the exportDocument() method will return a byte stream of the exported report.

Example of exporting a report to text format on the server-side:

index.php

<?php
    use Stimulsoft\Export\Enums\StiExportFormat;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\Enums\StiEngineType;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;
    
    $report = new StiReport();
    $report->engine = StiEngineType::ServerNodeJS;
    $report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');
    $report->render();
    $result = $report->exportDocument(StiExportFormat::Text);
?>

Full example code is available on GitHub.

It’s possible to automatically save the exported report as a file on the server. To do this, specify the save path in the filePath argument of the export method. In this case, the exportDocument() method will return a boolean result indicating whether the export and file save were successful.

Example of exporting a report to Adobe PDF format on the server-side and saving the result to a specified directory:

index.php

<?php
    use Stimulsoft\Export\Enums\StiExportFormat;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\Enums\StiEngineType;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;
    
    $report = new StiReport();
    $report->engine = StiEngineType::ServerNodeJS;
    $report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');
    $report->render();
    $exportedFilePath = 'reports/SimpleList.pdf';
    $result = $report->exportDocument(StiExportFormat::Pdf, null, false, $exportedFilePath);
?>

Export report settings

When exporting a report from code, you can set the necessary export settings. Each export format has its own settings class, as listed in the table below:

To apply the export settings, simply pass the prepared settings object as a parameter to the report’s export method. All other actions will be handled automatically.

Example of exporting a report to Adobe PDF format on the server-side, specifying company details in the settings and disabling embedded fonts:

index.php

<?php
    use Stimulsoft\Export\Enums\StiExportFormat;
    use Stimulsoft\Export\StiPdfExportSettings;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\Enums\StiEngineType;
    use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;
    
    $report = new StiReport();
    $report->engine = StiEngineType::ServerNodeJS;
    $report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');
    $report->render();
    
    $settings = new StiPdfExportSettings();
    $settings->creatorString = 'My Company Name';
    $settings->keywordsString = 'SimpleList PHP Report Export';
    $settings->embeddedFonts = false;
    
    $result = $report->exportDocument(StiExportFormat::Pdf, $settings);
?>

Full example code is available on GitHub.

Information

The class of the export settings object must match the export format. Otherwise, the format returned by the getExportFormat() method of the export settings object will take precedence.