README

A Symfony component that lets you return CSV file downloads directly from your controllers.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Which class should I use?
• Contributing
• Credits
• License
• Full Documentation

Features

• Two response classes for different use cases:

• Automatic header row generation from array keys (can be disabled)
• Configurable separator (semicolon by default, comma, etc.)
• Custom file name support
• DateTime objects are automatically formatted (configurable format)
• Optional UTF-8 BOM for Excel compatibility
• CSV injection protection (formula sanitization)
• Optional row limit (maxRows) to prevent unbounded memory usage
• Strict type handling: clear errors for unsupported object types
• Accepts arrays, iterables, generators, or callables as data source
• No configuration required — just install and use

Installation

composer require ilbee/csv-response

Usage

Basic example

use Ilbee\CSVResponse\CSVResponse;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Attribute\Route;

class ExportController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/export', name: 'export_csv')]
    public function export(): CSVResponse
    {
        $data = [
            ['firstName' => 'Marcel', 'lastName' => 'TOTO'],
            ['firstName' => 'Maurice', 'lastName' => 'TATA'],
        ];

        return new CSVResponse($data);
    }
}

This triggers a download of CSVExport.csv with the content:

firstName;lastName
Marcel;TOTO
Maurice;TATA

Streaming large exports

use Ilbee\CSVResponse\StreamedCSVResponse;

class ExportController extends AbstractController
{
    #[Route('/export/large', name: 'export_large_csv')]
    public function exportLarge(UserRepository $repository): StreamedCSVResponse
    {
        // Callable is invoked at send-time — no data buffered in memory
        return new StreamedCSVResponse(function () use ($repository) {
            foreach ($repository->findAllIterator() as $user) {
                yield [
                    'id' => $user->getId(),
                    'email' => $user->getEmail(),
                    'name' => $user->getName(),
                ];
            }
        });
    }
}

Custom file name and separator

use Ilbee\CSVResponse\CSVResponseInterface;

return new CSVResponse($data, 'users.csv', CSVResponseInterface::COMMA);

UTF-8 BOM (for Excel)

return new CSVResponse($data, 'users.csv', CSVResponseInterface::SEMICOLON, true);

Custom date format

return new CSVResponse($data, 'users.csv', CSVResponseInterface::SEMICOLON, false, 'd/m/Y');

Limit number of rows

// Throws OverflowException if data exceeds 10 000 rows
return new CSVResponse($data, 'users.csv', CSVResponseInterface::SEMICOLON, false, 'Y-m-d H:i:s', true, true, 10000);

Without header row

return new CSVResponse(
    $data,
    'users.csv',
    CSVResponseInterface::SEMICOLON,
    false,
    'Y-m-d H:i:s',
    false
);

Which class should I use?

Both classes share the same constructor signature and support the same features. The only difference is how data is written to the response.

Contributing

composer install
composer test          # PHPUnit
composer phpstan       # Static analysis
composer cs-check      # Code style check
composer cs-fix        # Auto-fix code style

Credits

Special thanks to Paul Mitchum and Dan Feder for their contributions.

License

MIT