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MNB PHPExcelDeveloper Guide
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XLS library

Reading Native XLS Files

Read BIFF8 worksheets, Unicode shared strings, dates, formulas, cached values, and projected rows with the native reader.

Level
Intermediate
Reading time
10 min
Package
mnb/mnb-phpexcel-xls
Updated
Xls::read()XlsReader::readSheet()XlsReader::sheetNames()ReadSession::rows()

Read associative rows#

PHP
use Mnb\PHPExcel\Format\Xls;

foreach (Xls::read('customers.xls')
    ->sheet('Customers')
    ->withHeaderRow()
    ->rows([
        'skip_empty_rows' => true,
        'max_rows' => 5000,
    ]) as $row) {
    echo $row['Name'] . PHP_EOL;
}

Choose a formula result mode#

PHP
$session = Xls::read('calculations.xls')->sheet('Summary');

$formulas = $session->toArray(['formula_cells' => 'formula']);
$cached   = $session->toArray(['formula_cells' => 'cached_value']);
$both     = $session->toArray(['formula_cells' => 'both']);

both returns Mnb\PHPExcel\Reader\State\FormulaResult values containing the formula, cached result, result type, and native BIFF token metadata. Unknown BIFF tokens retain a diagnostic formula representation while their cached values remain readable.

Use direct reader operations when needed#

PHP
use Mnb\PHPExcel\Reader\XlsReader;

$reader = new XlsReader();
$sheetNames = $reader->sheetNames('report.xls');
$rows = $reader->readSheet('report.xls', 1, [
    'start_row' => 2,
    'end_row' => 1000,
    'only_columns' => ['A', 'C', 'F'],
]);

Limit binary parsing for uploads#

PHP
$rows = Xls::read('upload.xls')->toArray([
    'max_file_size' => 64 * 1024 * 1024,
    'max_stream_size' => 32 * 1024 * 1024,
    'max_chain_sectors' => 200000,
    'max_biff_records' => 1000000,
    'max_shared_strings' => 250000,
]);