read column from excel

dreams4000

Hey all,

I have an excel file that has a couple of columns, passes: some number and fails: some number. Is there any way to pull those #s from the excel file in php to later store them in a database? The current program I am working with allows a end user to upload the excel file to the server. I then need that file to parse out the above items. Any ideas? ( noticed some posts here on similar items but most suggested to use asp or access or some other item. I need to stick with the php route. ) Also, this file contains a lot of other data as that is what is generating the pass and fail numbers. As well as some visual formating. I would love to parse it as a .csv file, but that then removes the formating for later viewing which wont work for that is needed. I would like all of that to stay intact so that this file can be downloaded in the future and viewed normally.

Thanks for any help!

AstroTeg

I'm assuming you've searched on google for PHP and XLS parsing (if not, please do so, there may be a PHP/XLS library out there that will help - also check out the Pear libraries).

When I had last looked (which was a few years ago), I wasn't able to find anything so I resorted to using Perl's ParseExcel library. You can find more info about it here: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pexcel/

Using Perl, you should be able to do what you need to and pass the results back to PHP.

biggus

I think Pear does have a class for that. It's just called XLS (and has a subclass of Worksheet or something, among others). Not sure, though. A quick Yahoo search (I seem to get better results with Yahoo than with Google) came up with a free product from BadBlue:

http://www.badblue.com/helpphpo.htm

and this one:

http://paggard.com/projects/xls.reader/

found this in a different forum (also in my Yahoo search):

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?threadid=24546

If you try one, let me know how it works.

Biggus