phpExcelReader uses and problems?

If you will search over internet about excel reader in PHP at the end you would be redirected to the following this link only. It’s well written code but there are also some problems in that. Some documentation is missing. In this post we are going to discuss how to use phpExcelReader and which type of problems you could face.

Download : 

1) You can download the original library from here.

2) Mine one(with bug fixes) is available here. Go there, Click on File menu then download it.

How to use :

1)  In the package itself example2.php is a very good example of using excel reader.

2)  Beginners can have a look at following example

<?php

            ini_set("display_errors",1);

            error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);

            require_once 'phpExcelReader/Excel/reader.php';

                       

            $data = new Spreadsheet_Excel_Reader();

            $data->read("files/1331184203.xls");

           

            //If there are n sheets in a excel file then it would run for n times

            for($sheet=0;$sheet<count($data->sheets);$sheet++)

            {

                        for($row=1;$row<=$data->sheets[$sheet]['numRows'];$row++)

                        {

                                    for($col=1;$col<=$data->sheets[$sheet]['numCols'];$col++)

                                    {

                                                $xls[$sheet][$row][$col] = htmlentities($data->sheets[$sheet]['cells'][$row][$col]);

                                    }

                        }

                       

            }

            print "<pre>";

            print_r($xls);

                       

            include "html/beginners.html";

?>

It would return an array. You can use this to save contents in the database or do whatever you want with that.

Problems : 

When you will use the original library, following problem could come.

1)  Warning: require_once(Spreadsheet/Excel/Reader/OLERead.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\......\phpExcelReader\Excel\reader.php on line 32

Fix :  

Find a line in phpExcelReader\Excel\reader.php with following code:

require_once 'Spreadsheet/Excel/Reader/OLERead.php';

replace it with following line :

require_once 'Excel/oleread.inc';

2) Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in  C:\.....\phpExcelReader\Excel\reader.php on line 264 

Fix : 

Find a line in phpExcelReader\Excel\reader.php with following code : 

      $this->_ole = & new OLERead();  

    

      Replace it with:

      $this->_ole = new OLERead();

Or

$le = new OLERead();

$this-<_ole = & $le;

3)  The filename abc.xls is not readable.

Fix : 

      It means your file is not in a proper format. For proper format check the

      file : Correct.xls

 4)  Date issue : If you are getting wrong dates like 

a)      You have entered the date with format like dd-mm-yyyy ex. 17-03-2008 and it’s returning you with 18/03/2008 (with one day ahead)

b)      You have entered date with format mm-dd-yyyy ex. 03-17-2008 and it’s returning just like 00/1818/08080808

Fix : 

Find function createDate($numValue){.....} in reader.php file and replace it with following code :

function createDate($numValue)

{

        if ($numValue > 1) {

            $utcDays = $numValue - ($this->nineteenFour ? SPREADSHEET_EXCEL_READER_UTCOFFSETDAYS1904 : SPREADSHEET_EXCEL_READER_UTCOFFSETDAYS);

            $utcValue = round(($utcDays) * SPREADSHEET_EXCEL_READER_MSINADAY);

                 

                  $this->curformat = strtolower($this->curformat);

                  //echo $this->curformat; echo "<br>";

                  if ($this->curformat == 'mm/dd/yyyy' || $this->curformat == 'i/dd/yyyy') {

                        $this->curformat = 'Y-m-d';

                  }

                 

            $string = date ($this->curformat, $utcValue);

            $raw = $utcValue;

        } else {

            $raw = $numValue;

            $hours = floor($numValue * 24);

            $mins = floor($numValue * 24 * 60) - $hours * 60;

            $secs = floor($numValue * SPREADSHEET_EXCEL_READER_MSINADAY) - $hours * 60 * 60 - $mins * 60;

            $string = date ($this->curformat, mktime($hours, $mins, $secs));

        }

        return array($string, $raw);

 }

If you are facing more issues or the package is not working for you, please contact me here or put your comments against the post.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy Programming :)