setting is the following: I have a homepage where I display a diagram that has been constructed using comma seperated values from within the page. I\'d like to give users th
As far as I know, this is not possible: This is why Downloadify was created.
You could try linking to a data:URL containing CSV data, but there will be cross-browser trouble.
HTML:
<a href="javascript:onDownload();">Download</a>
JavaScript:
function onDownload() {
document.location = 'data:Application/octet-stream,' +
encodeURIComponent(dataToDownload);
}
Taken from How to Download Data as a File From JavaScript
Update:
Time certainly changes things ;-) When I first answered this question IE8 was the latest IE browser available (Nov 2010) and thus there was no cross browser way to accomplish this without a round trip to the server, or using a tool requiring Flash.
@Zectburno's answer will get you what you need now, however for historical context be aware of which IE browsers support which feature.
Be sure to test in the browsers you need to support. Even though the Blob example in the other answer should work in IE10+ it doesn't work for me just clicking the link (browser does nothing, no error)... only if I right click and save target as "file.csv" then navigate to the file and double-click it can I open the file.
Test both approaches (btoa/Blob) in this JSFiddle. (here's the code)
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<a id="a" target="_blank">Download CSV (via btoa)</a>
<script>
var csv = "a,b,c\n1,2,3\n";
var a = document.getElementById("a");
a.href = "data:text/csv;base64," + btoa(csv);
</script>
<hr/>
<a id="a2" download="Download.csv" type="text/csv">Download CSV (via Blob)</a>
<script>
var csv = "a,b,c\n1,2,3\n";
var data = new Blob([csv]);
var a2 = document.getElementById("a2");
a2.href = URL.createObjectURL(data);
</script>
</body>
</html>
Original Answer:
I don't think there is an option available for this.
I would just adjust your code such that if Flash 10+ is detected (93% saturation as of September 2009) on the user's system, provide the Downloadify option, otherwise fallback to a server-side request.
If your users have up to date browsers, the new Blob object could help you.
Based on the example here https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM/Blob ("Blob constructor example usage"), you could do something like the following:
var typedArray = "123,abc,456"; //your csv as a string
var blob = new Blob([typedArray], {type: "text/csv"});
var url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
var a = document.querySelector("#linktocsv"); // the id of the <a> element where you will render the download link
a.href = url;
a.download = "file.csv";
Simple solution :
function download(content, filename, contentType)
{
if(!contentType) contentType = 'application/octet-stream';
var a = document.createElement('a');
var blob = new Blob([content], {'type':contentType});
a.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
a.download = filename;
a.click();
}
Usage
download("csv_data_here", "filename.csv", "text/csv");
function export(exportAs) {
var csvText = tableRowsToCSV(this.headTable.rows);
csvText += tableRowsToCSV(this.bodyTable.rows);
//open the iframe doc for writing
var expIFrame;
if (strBrowser == "MSIE") expIFrame = document.exportiframe;
else expIFrame = window.framesexportiframe;
var doc = expIFrame.document;
doc.open('text/plain', 'replace');
doc.charset = "utf-8";
doc.write(csvText);
doc.close();
var fileName = exportAs + ".txt";
doc.execCommand("SaveAs", null, fileName);
}
function tableRowsToCSV(theRows) {
var csv = "";
var csvRow = "";
var theCells;
var cellData = "";
for (var r = 0; r < theRows.length; r++) {
theCells = theRows.item(r).cells;
for (var c = 0; c < theCells.length; c++) {
cellData = "";
cellData = theCells.item(c).innerText;
if (cellData.indexOf(",") != -1) cellData = "'" + cellData + "'";
if (cellData != "") csvRow += "," + cellData;
}
if (csvRow != "") csvRow = csvRow.substring(1, csvRow.length);
csv += csvRow + "\n";
csvRow = "";
}
return csv;
}
I found this code elsewhere, here, previously