Hello Reader! If you want to read a Excel file in PHP then you can learn the library code below

read('excel_file.xls'); // reads and stores the excel file data

// Test to see the excel data stored in $sheets property

var_export($excel->sheets);

or 

print_r($excel->sheets);

The $sheets property will store this array:

array (
 0 => array (
  'maxrow' => 0,
  'maxcol' => 0,
  'numRows' => 8,
  'numCols' => 4,
  'cells' => array (
    2 => array ( 2 => 'Web sites data' ),
     4 => array (
      1 => 'Title',
      2 => 'Url',
      3 => 'Visitors',
      4 => 'Accesses'
    ),
    5 => array (
     1 => 'Web Programming Courses',
     2 => 'http://coursesweb.net/',
     3 => '5000',
     4 => '9800'
    ),
    6 => array (
     1 => 'Courses Games and Anime',
     2 => 'http://www.marplo.net/',
     3 => '6000',
     4 => '22000'
    ),
    7 => array (
     1 => 'PHP: Hypertext Processor',
     2 => 'http://php.net/',
     3 => '30000',
     4 => '92000'
    ),
    8 => array (
     1 => 'Yahoo!',
     2 => 'http://yahoo.com/',
     3 => '100000',
     4 => '650000'
    ),
   ),
   'cellsInfo' =>  array (
     5 => array (
      3 => array (
      'raw' => 5000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
     4 => array (
      'raw' => 9800,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
    ),
    6 => array (
     3 => array (
      'raw' => 6000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
     4 => array (
      'raw' => 22000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
    ),
    7 => array (
     3 => array (
      'raw' => 30000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
     4 => array (
      'raw' => 92000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
    ),
    8 => array (
     3 => array (
      'raw' => 100000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
     4 => array (
      'raw' => 650000,
      'type' => 'unknown'
     ),
    ),
    2 => array (
     2 => array ( 'colspan' => 3 ),
    ),
   ),
 )
)

The data is stored in 'cells' and the meta-data is stored in an array called 'cellsInfo'.

$sheets[index]  -->  'cells'  -->  row --> column --> Interpreted value
             -->  'cellsInfo' --> row --> column --> 'type' (Can be 'date', 'number', or 'unknown')
                                                --> 'raw' (The raw data that Excel stores for that data cell)

Here is an example that creates and outputs HTML table with excel data from each sheet.

<?php
include 'excel_reader.php';     // include the class

// creates an object instance of the class, and read the excel file data
$excel = new PHPExcelParser;
$excel->read('test.xls');

// this function creates and returns a HTML table with excel rows and columns data
// Parameter - array with excel worksheet data
function sheetData($sheet) {
  $re = '<table>';     // starts html table

  $x = 1;
  while($x <= $sheet['numRows']) {
    $re .= "<tr>\n";
    $y = 1;
    while($y <= $sheet['numCols']) {
      $cell = isset($sheet['cells'][$x][$y]) ? $sheet['cells'][$x][$y] : '';
      $re .= " <td>$cell</td>\n";  
      $y++;
    }  
    $re .= "</tr>\n";
    $x++;
  }

  return $re .'</table>';     // ends and returns the html table
}

$nr_sheets = count($excel->sheets);       // gets the number of worksheets
$excel_data = '';              // to store the the html tables with data of each sheet

// traverses the number of sheets and sets html table with each sheet data in $excel_data
for($i=0; $i<$nr_sheets; $i++) {
  $excel_data .= '<h4>Sheet '. ($i + 1) .' (<em>'. $excel->boundsheets[$i]['name'] .'</em>)</h4>'. sheetData($excel->sheets[$i]) .'<br/>';  
}

echo $excel_data;      // outputs HTML tables with excel file data

Sourcr : coursesweb