Getting started

Read Your First XLSX File

Open one worksheet, turn the first row into keys, and process records safely.

Level: Beginner
Reading time: 7 min
Package: mnb/mnb-phpexcel
Updated: August 1, 2026

PHP 8.1+Full packageStreaming

MnbExcel::read()ReadSession::sheet()ReadSession::sheetIfExists()ReadSession::activeSheet()ReadSession::withHeaderRow()ReadSession::rows()

Create a complete runnable script#

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use Mnb\PHPExcel\MnbExcel;

foreach (MnbExcel::read(__DIR__ . '/storage/imports/orders.xlsx')
    ->sheet('Orders')
    ->withHeaderRow(1)
    ->rows() as $row) {
    printf("%s: %s\n", $row['Order ID'], $row['Customer']);
}

Understand the call chain#

Call	Responsibility
`MnbExcel::read($path)`	Detects the file format and returns a unified read session.
`sheet('Orders')`	Selects one worksheet by its visible name.
`withHeaderRow(1)`	Uses physical row 1 as associative-array keys.
`rows()`	Returns a generator that yields one normalized record at a time.

Add production-safe error handling#

use Mnb\PHPExcel\MnbExcel;
use Mnb\PHPExcel\Support\MnbExcelException;

try {
    $workbook = MnbExcel::read($path);
    $session = ($workbook->sheetIfExists('Orders') ?? $workbook->activeSheet())
        ->withHeaderRow(1)
        ->assertHasRows();

    foreach ($session->rows() as $row) {
        // Process the record.
    }
} catch (MnbExcelException $error) {
    error_log(json_encode($error->toErrorArray(debug: true)));
    http_response_code(422);
    echo 'The workbook could not be processed.';
}

Next step#

Continue to Sheets and headers when workbook layouts are inconsistent, or Choose a large-file strategy before importing very large data sets.

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