csv - What is the best way to create XLS file in PHP

Question

I am currently trying to figure out the best way to create a .xls file from PHP. It seems like to me that all I need to do is change the header content type to "application/vnd.ms-excel", and then output data in a comma separated format. Is this the best way to do this?

Thanks for any help!
Metropolis

EDIT

Would it be bad to just output the data as HTML? I already have a class that I would like to extend for this problem, so I would prefer to stay away from a third party solution. I just need to know what the best way to output the data would be in order to get the most out of that file format.

After looking at PHPExcel it seems to be the best solution for this issue. I appreciate all of your answers and I would have given three correct answers if I could lol. But up votes will have to do :)

Answer 1

its pretty easy, because excel supports html code. So you just need to add a header in the top of the file.. and then echo your html code!

header ( "Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel" );
header ( "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=foo_bar.xls" );
echo "<table><tr><th>Header1</th></tr><tr><td>value1</td></tr></table>";

this will generate an excel file!