README

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

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

Features

Two response classes for different use cases:

Class	Extends	Best for
`CSVResponse`	`Response`	Small to medium datasets (buffered in memory)
`StreamedCSVResponse`	`StreamedResponse`	Large datasets (streamed row by row, constant memory)

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?

Scenario	Class
Small datasets (< 1000 rows)	`CSVResponse`
Need to access content after creation (`getContent()`)	`CSVResponse`
Large datasets or unknown size	`StreamedCSVResponse`
Database cursor / generator source	`StreamedCSVResponse`
Memory-constrained environment	`StreamedCSVResponse`

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

ilbee / csv-response

Maintainers

Package info

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