Reading xls (Excel) files in PHP

Question

I'm fairly new to this so I wanted to ask a question. I uploaded an excel file using html and when I try to learn how to read excel files using php, this is what I've got from IBM:

<?php

$filename = basename($_FILES["file"]["name"]);

$ext = substr($filename, strrpos($filename, '.') + 1);

function get_data($qnum, $qtype, $qname, $qtext, $atext, $pcredit, $rcounts, $r, $qcount, $cfac, $sd, $disc_inx, $disc_coef)
{
    global $data;

    $data[] = array('QNum' => $qnum, 'Qtype' => $qtype, 'Questionname' => $qname, 'Questiontext' => $qtext,
        'Answertext' => $atext, 'PartialCredit' => $pcredit, 'RCounts' => $r, 'QCount' => $qcount,
        'Correctionfacility' => $cfac, 'DiscriminationIndex' => $disc_inx, 'DiscriminationCoefficient' => $disc_coef);
}

if ($ext == "xls") {
    $dom = DOMDocument::load($_FILES['file']['tmp_name']);
    $rows = $dom->getElementsByTagName('Row');
    $first_row = true;
    foreach ($rows as $row) {
        if (!$first_row) {
            $qnum = "";
            $qtype = "";
            $qname = "";
            $qtext = "";
            $atext = "";
            $pcredit = "";
            $r = "";
            $qcount = "";
            $cfac = "";
            $disc_inx = "";
            $disc_coef = "";

            $index = 1;
            $cells = $row->getElementsByTagName('Cell');
            foreach ($cells as $cell) {
                $ind = $cell->getAttribute('Index');
                if ($ind != null)
                    $index = $ind;

                if ($index == 1)
                    $qnum = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 2)
                    $qtype = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 3)
                    $qname = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 4)
                    $qtext = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 5)
                    $atext = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 6)
                    $pcredit = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 7)
                    $r = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 8)
                    $qcount = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 9)
                    $cfac = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 10)
                    $disc_inx = $cell->nodeValue;
                if ($index == 11)
                    $disc_coef = $cell->nodeValue;

                $index += 1;
            }
            get_data($qnum, $qtype, $qname, $qtext, $atext, $pcredit, $r, $qcount, $cfac, $disc_inx, $disc_coef);
        }
        $first_row = false;
    }
}

else {
    echo "Invalid file!";
}
?>

And I got a syntax error

Warning: DOMDocument::load(): Start tag expected, '<' not found in /tmp/phpwUIpyZ, line: 1 in /var/www/moodle/question/upload_file.php on line 16 Fatal error: Call to a member function getElementsByTagName() on a non-object in /var/www/moodle/question/upload_file.php on line 17.

What is the error on my code? Need help please thanks!

Shai Mishali · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19 10:07:32Z

5

Excel is not an valid DOMDocument , so of course you can't use DOMDocument for it :)

I would suggest using something ready such as PHPExcelReader.

Good Luck,
Shai.

answered Sep 19, 2011 at 10:07

Shai Mishali

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Piskvor left the building · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19 10:09:28Z

1

As the error message say, $dom is a non-object - in other words, DOMDocument::load returned something, but not an object. There could be various reasons for that, but the most likely ones are:

file doesn't exist or not readable
file is malformed (not a valid DOM document), parsing failed

See the manual: http://php.net/manual/en/domdocument.load.php

Note also that you seem to be trying to parse an XLS file as a DOM document - that won't fly, those are completely different file formats.

answered Sep 19, 2011 at 10:09

Piskvor left the building

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