PHP Excel Class

Introduction

In php-to-excel you can find a very simple class to convert easily a two dimensional array into a .XLS file.

I know there's a lot of classes that do the same thing, but I had no success with them. I'm going to write down how I adapted the code to make it working in CodeIgniter.

Quick Usage

Method 1: PHP classical way

If you don't want to use the CodeIgniter way (why and who doesn't want to use it?), you can code within your Controller:

function file_xls()
{
require (dirname (__FILE__) . "/class-excel-xml.inc.php");
$myarray =  array (        
	1 => array ("Oliver", "Peter", "Paul"),             
	array ("Marlene", "Mica", "Lina")     
);		 	
$xls = new Excel_XML; 		
$xls->addArray ($myarray); 		
$xls->generateXML ( "filename" ); 	
}

The only thing you must do is to download the file and copy it where you like, but remember to indicate the right path where your application can find it.

Method 2: CodeIgniter way

1. First of all, download the file class-excel-xml.inc.php.
2. Rename it to php-excel_helper.php.
3. Move it to /application/helpers/.

If you want to use arrays, you have to write within your Controller the following code:

function file_xls()
{
   $this->load->helper('php-excel');
   $data_array =  array (
   $data_array[] = array ("Oliver", "Peter", "Paul"),
                    array ("Marlene", "Mica", "Lina")
            ); 
   $xls = new Excel_XML;
   $xls->addArray ($data_array);
   $xls->generateXML ( "output_name" );
}

But if you want to use the class with a MySQL database query (or whatever you wish in CodeIgniter?), this is the right, working code:

function file_xls()
{
   $this->load->helper('php-excel');
   $query = $this->db->get('table_name');
            foreach ($query->result() as $row)
            {
                    $data_array[] = array( $row->id, $row->name, $row->surname );
            }
   $xls = new Excel_XML;
   $xls->addArray ($data_array);
   $xls->generateXML ( "output_name" );
}

Of course, you can combine the array method with the query method, because the only issue with the query method is that only converts data, instead of field names AND data. There's no problem, because you can do it so:

function file_xls()
{
   $this->load->helper('php-excel');
   $query = $this->db->get('table_name');
   $field_array = (
   $field_array[] = array ("ID", "Name", "Surname"),
                   );
   foreach ($query->result() as $row)
         {
         $data_array[] = array( $row->id, $row->name, $row->surname );
         }
   $xls = new Excel_XML;
   $xls->addArray ($field_array);
   $xls->addArray ($data_array);
   $xls->generateXML ( "output_name" );
}

I hope you find it useful. Cheers.

Thanks to Oliver Schwarz for such a simple, clean and great class.