Load excel file into PHP_Excel from variable

Question

I currently have this

file_put_contents($tmpfile, $attachments[0]['body']);
$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($tmpfile);

The file I am reading is extracted from an email, so rather then writing it to a tempfile I would like to read it directly into phpexcel from a string (if that makes sense)

$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($attachments[0]['body']);

I have looked at the php excel manual but can't see how to do it, any ideas?

score 21 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 07 '14 at 06:02

21

This might not be the most elegant solution but here is how I solved it:

public function fromString($data=null)
{
    $file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'excel_');
    $handle = fopen($file, "w");
    fwrite($handle, $data);
    $return = \PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($file);
    fclose($handle);
    unlink($file);
    return $return;
}

answered Nov 07 '14 at 06:02

Dieter Gribnitz

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This should be marked as the correct answer since php://memory and temp cannot be reused once closed. This solution is not ideal but its the only way that PHPexcel/phpspreadsheet accepts data from a string – Avenyet Mar 05 '18 at 11:54

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 20 '14 at 08:38

4

PHPExcel provides no direct method for loading from a string rather than from a file. As an alternative to actually creating a physical filesystem file for $tmpfile though, you might be able to use php://memory or php://temp

edited Nov 20 '14 at 08:38

mario

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answered Mar 02 '12 at 18:57

Mark Baker

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1

Relevant issue opened in the PHPExcel issue tracker: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel/issues/677 – CubicleSoft Sep 16 '15 at 05:38
How can it be done? `PHPExcel_IOFactory::load('php://temp')` seems to be wrong... Do you have any idea? Will there be any problems with zip or so? – robsch Dec 16 '15 at 12:08
Sorry! Could you just provide an example? I may write something to php://temp (like [here](http://php.net/manual/en/wrappers.php.php#example-351)), but how should it be passed to `PHPExcel_IOFactory::load()`. With the file pointer? – robsch Dec 16 '15 at 14:00
1

From what I can tell, a solution involving `php://memory` (and similar) is not possible, because it's not possible to pass an already open stream to PHPExcel to load from it. Passing "php://memory" as filename to PHPExcel will make it open a separate fresh stream which will be empty. – jlh Jul 20 '16 at 12:49

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 25 '20 at 16:43

2

You must first create a reader for the excel file and then load that file from your constructed reader. Take a look at this for full details.

edited Nov 25 '20 at 16:43

General Grievance

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answered Mar 02 '12 at 18:45

Amin Fazli

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The link is dead. – rrirower Nov 25 '20 at 16:25

Load excel file into PHP_Excel from variable

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