PHP Spreadsheet

Read and write XLSX, ODS and CSV files with no Composer dependencies. Rows are streamed in and out one at a time, so memory stays flat as the row count grows (see Memory and bench/RESULTS.md).

Using Laravel? intragile/laravel-spreadsheet builds on this package: Eloquent exports with keyset pagination and queued jobs, and imports with automatic column mapping, validation, a failed-rows file and record matching against existing data.

use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Spreadsheet;

$reader = Spreadsheet::read('/path/to/upload.xlsx');   // the format is detected from the content

foreach ($reader->rows() as $number => $row) {
    // $row is a list of int|float|string|bool|DateTimeImmutable|null
}

$reader->close();

Installation

composer require intragile/php-spreadsheet

Requires PHP 8.3+ with ext-zip, ext-xmlreader, ext-mbstring and ext-iconv. There are no Composer dependencies. Reading legacy .xls files needs the suggested phpoffice/phpspreadsheet package, 5.10 or later (see Reading legacy XLS).

Reading

$reader = Spreadsheet::read('/path/to/file.ods');

$reader->sheets();                       // list<SheetInfo>: name, index, visibility
$reader->rows();                         // first sheet; rows($nameOrIndex) picks another

foreach ($reader->rowsWithHeader() as $number => $record) {
    echo $record['email'];               // keyed by the trimmed header row
}

$reader->close();

• Keys of rows() are the real 1-based row numbers; fully empty rows are skipped.
• Cell types are preserved: numbers, booleans, text and dates (DateTimeImmutable, including dates behind custom number formats and the 1904 date system). CSV values are always strings.
• Duplicate or blank header cells become name_2 / column_N. A header that is a decimal integer (such as 2024) becomes an int array key, as PHP always stores such keys: $record[2024] and $record['2024'] both work, but array_keys() returns 2024 as an int.
• A date-formatted XLSX cell whose serial lies outside the spreadsheet calendar (below 0 or after 9999-12-31) is returned as the plain number instead of a date.
• CSV delimiter and encoding are sniffed (including the Windows-1250, ;-separated export of Hungarian Excel) and can be overridden:

use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Format;
use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\ReadOptions;

$reader = Spreadsheet::read(
    $path,
    new ReadOptions(csvDelimiter: ';', csvEncoding: 'Windows-1250'),
    Format::Csv,
);

• CSV input in another encoding is decoded to UTF-8 losslessly: UTF-16 and UTF-32 and single-byte code pages such as Windows-1250 or ISO-8859-2. A byte the code page does not define (such as 0x81 in Windows-1250) becomes U+FFFD instead of failing the read. Other multi-byte encodings (Shift_JIS, GBK, Big5, EUC-KR) throw InvalidArgumentException; convert such files to UTF-8 first.
• UTF-16 and UTF-32 are detected with or without a byte-order mark (without one, from the position of the zero bytes, which works for text that is mostly Latin script). A csvEncoding without a byte order (UTF-16, UCS-2, UTF-32, UCS-4) takes it from the mark or, without one, from the detected order, and falls back to big-endian; UTF-16LE and the like are used as given.
• CSV exported by Excel for Mac is read as well. Its Mac Central European code page is detected when the text has enough Hungarian á and é to tell it from Windows-1250, which stays the default; for other text name it with csvEncoding: 'MacCentralEurope'. The "CSV Mac" format, whose lines end with a bare carriage return, is split into records (detected when, outside quoted fields, there are bare carriage returns and no line feed); a carriage return inside a quoted field of such a file becomes \n.
• maxCellBytes counts raw CSV bytes including enclosures. A small limit costs no speed on ordinary rows; rows about as long as the limit or longer are checked byte by byte and read about 2x slower.

A missing or unreadable file throws SpreadsheetException for every format, also when a reader class is used directly. An empty (0-byte) file throws UnsupportedFormat; pass Format::Csv to read it as an empty CSV. A file that starts like a zip archive but cannot be opened (a truncated upload) throws CorruptFile. .xlsb, password-protected Office files, other OLE2 documents, Numbers and PDF files throw UnsupportedFormat with a message naming them. A short binary file without NUL bytes cannot be told apart from text and is read as CSV.

Reading legacy XLS

Binary .xls workbooks are detected from their content (Format::Xls) and read through the optional phpoffice/phpspreadsheet package (composer require "phpoffice/phpspreadsheet:^5.10"; without it, reading an XLS file throws UnsupportedFormat). Rows, sheet selection, rowsWithHeader() and the value types work as for the other formats, including the 1904 date system. Unlike them, XLS reading is not streaming: the whole workbook is loaded into memory. The sheet dimensions are read first, and a workbook whose sheets hold more cells than maxCells is rejected with LimitExceeded before anything is loaded. XLS files cannot be written.

Inspecting a file

FileInspector::inspect($path) scans the first 20 non-empty rows of every sheet (adjustable with scanRows) and reports the format, each sheet's guessed header row (a real 1-based row number, or null), column count and sample rows, and firstDataSheet, the first visible sheet with data. The header is the first scanned row with at least two non-numeric text cells that is followed by a non-empty row. FileInspector::countCells($path, stopAbove: 500_000) counts non-empty cells and stops as soon as the limit is passed (exceeded), so an oversized sheet is rejected without reading all of it.

$inspection = FileInspector::inspect('contacts.xlsx');
$sheet = $inspection->sheets[$inspection->firstDataSheet ?? 0];
$header = $sheet->headerRow; // e.g. 3

Writing

The format follows the file extension (.xlsx, .ods, .csv/.txt; .txt is written as CSV), or pass a Format. .xlsm can be read but not written, as the written workbook would hold no macros.

use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Cell;
use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\SheetOptions;
use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Spreadsheet;
use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Style;

$writer = Spreadsheet::write('/path/to/report.xlsx');

$header = Style::make()->bold()->fill('DDDDDD')->border();

$writer
    ->sheet('Orders', new SheetOptions(columnWidths: [1 => 12, 2 => 30], freezeRows: 1, autoFilter: true))
    ->addRow(['ID', 'Customer', 'Total', 'Ordered'], $header);

foreach ($orders as $order) {                       // any iterable, including generators
    $writer->addRow([
        $order->id,                                 // number
        $order->customer,                           // always stored as text
        Cell::of($order->total, Style::make()->numberFormat('#,##0.00')),
        $order->orderedAt,                          // DateTimeInterface -> date
    ]);
}

$writer->addRow(['', 'Sum', Cell::formula('=SUM(C2:C100)')]);
$writer->close();                                   // the file appears atomically on close

• Strings are never coerced: "00123" and "1e5" stay text in every format, and "=1+1" stays text in XLSX and ODS. Use Cell::formula() for formulas and Cell::text() to force text. CSV has no cell types, so a spreadsheet application opening a CSV file runs =1+1 as a formula; see CSV for Excel for formula escaping.
• ODS formulas are converted to OpenFormula for plain A1 references, ranges and the , argument separator. References to other sheets (Sheet2!A1), quoted names and structured references are written unconverted, so such a formula may not evaluate in LibreOffice; use XLSX for them.
• Characters that are illegal in XML are stripped instead of producing a corrupt file.
• Sheet names are validated (length, forbidden characters, characters XML cannot hold such as U+FFFE, case-insensitive duplicates) before anything is written.
• Style is immutable; equal styles share one entry in the file.
• Floats are written in the shortest form that reads back as the same number (0.1 stays 0.1, 1.0E+25 uses an exponent), independent of the precision and serialize_precision settings; -0.0 is written as 0. Integers are written exactly, but Excel and LibreOffice store numbers as doubles: integers beyond 2^53 (9,007,199,254,740,992) lose precision and Excel shows 15 significant digits, so write IDs and account numbers as strings.
• Column widths are in characters of the default font (11 pt Calibri). The cell padding is added as the OOXML specification prescribes, so Excel for Windows shows the width you set; Excel for Mac renders 0.17 narrower (32 shows as 31.83, checked with Excel for Mac 16).
• A column holding dates gets a width that fits its longest date, unless you set one: 11 for yyyy-mm-dd, 20 for yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss, and long month or weekday names counted as 10 characters. Without it Excel shows ##### for a date wider than the default column. Other columns are not sized to their content.
• close() renames the finished file onto the target path, replacing an existing file without warning. If an earlier error aborted the write, close() throws LogicException and no file is written.

CSV for Excel

Spreadsheet::write('x.csv') writes UTF-8 with ,. Hungarian (and most continental) Excel installations expect ; and only recognise UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so create the writer directly for them:

use IntrAgile\Spreadsheet\Csv\CsvWriter;

$writer = new CsvWriter('/path/to/export.csv', delimiter: ';', bom: true, escapeFormulas: true);
$writer->addRow(['Név', 'Összeg'])->addRow(['Árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép', 1234.5])->close();

Numbers are written with a . decimal point whatever the locale. A Hungarian Excel shows such a field as text; if it should see a number, pass a string with a decimal comma (number_format($total, 2, ',', '')). Negative numbers passed as strings are escaped by escapeFormulas too, so leave the option off for such purely numeric exports.

CSV injection. A field that starts with =, +, - or @ is run as a formula when the file is opened in Excel or LibreOffice, which lets user-supplied text such as =HYPERLINK("https://evil.example", "click") act inside the reader's spreadsheet. With escapeFormulas: true every string value starting with one of those characters, a tab or a carriage return is written with a leading ', so it is shown as text instead of being run. The apostrophe stays visible: Excel hides a leading ' only when it is typed into a cell, not when it comes from a CSV file (checked with Excel for Mac 16). It is off by default because it changes the data (a text -5 becomes '-5); turn it on for any export that contains user input. Values passed as Cell::formula() stay unescaped.

Excel also converts CSV fields that look like numbers or dates: 00123 becomes 123, 1e5 becomes 1,00E+05 and 2026-01-15 becomes a date. CSV cannot prevent this; write XLSX when such text must survive.

Office application compatibility

Checked on macOS 15.7 (Hungarian locale) with Microsoft Excel for Mac 16.114, Apple Numbers and LibreOffice 26.8, using the sample set from tests/office/build-samples.php and the inspectors next to it (AppleScript for Excel and Numbers, libreoffice-inspect.sh for LibreOffice).

Excel:

• XLSX and ODS (plain and styled) open without a repair prompt. Cell positions and types are right, including null gaps, dates, booleans, multi-line text and text that looks like a number or formula (00123, 1e5, =1+1). Number and date formats, column widths, the frozen header row and the autofilter show in XLSX; formulas are calculated on open in both formats.
• ODS in Excel: the autofilter shows, the frozen row does not, because Excel's ODS support has no frozen panes: it ignores them in an ODS file saved by LibreOffice too.
• Date columns are at least as wide as Excel's AutoFit makes them, so no date shows as #####.
• CSV with delimiter: ';', bom: true opens split into columns with correct accents; with , it does not split on a Hungarian system.
• Files saved by Excel (XLSX, and CSV in the Mac code page with CRLF or CR line endings) read back with the right values and types.

LibreOffice:

• XLSX and ODS open with the right values, types and formats; the frozen header row and the autofilter show in both formats, and date columns are at least as wide as Calc's optimal width.

Apple Numbers:

• XLSX and CSV open with the right values, types, number and date formats, and calculated formulas.
• Numbers cannot open ODS files at all, and it shows no frozen rows from XLSX, Excel's own files included.

Memory

No reader or writer holds more than the current row in memory, plus caches of fixed size. XLSX shared strings are kept in RAM up to ReadOptions::$sharedStringsInMemory entries; the rest spill to a temporary file together with a fixed-width index of their offsets, so memory stays constant however many strings spill (only 64 KiB read-ahead blocks are held). Writers stream to a temporary file and rename it into place on close(). The test suite asserts that peak memory does not grow with the row count.

Safety limits

Uploaded files are untrusted, so readers enforce limits (all configurable in ReadOptions):

Option	Default	Protects against
maxZipEntries	5,000	archives with huge entry counts
maxUncompressedBytes	4 GiB	zip bombs, each entry is also capped at its declared size (at least 1 MiB) on the bytes actually decompressed
maxCompressionRatio	200	entries larger than 1 MiB that expand more than 200:1
maxCellBytes	1 MiB	one cell or CSV field growing without bound: ODS space runs (text:s), every XLSX text value (shared, inline, formula results, untyped), a CSV field after a stray quote
maxCells	100,000,000	ODS cells produced by repeating cells and rows (number-columns-repeated x number-rows-repeated)
maxSharedStrings	10,000,000	XLSX shared-string tables with millions of entries

Fixed limits: non-empty rows beyond 1,048,576 (empty rows past it are skipped; ODS repeat counts are held to the limits however many digits they have) and XLSX columns beyond XFD (16,384); CSV records with more than 16,384 fields; more than 4,096 sheets; more than 65,536 cell or number formats in an XLSX styles part; 64 MiB for the XLSX workbook, relationship and styles parts. Each raises LimitExceeded instead of exhausting memory or time. A DOCTYPE with an internal subset (where entities are declared) is refused, and external DTDs and entities are never loaded, so there is no XXE or entity expansion. Unsafe zip entry names are rejected, and an entry whose header cannot be read makes the archive CorruptFile. Limit violations throw LimitExceeded; damaged files throw CorruptFile; both extend SpreadsheetException.

Benchmarks

See bench/RESULTS.md.

Development

composer install
vendor/bin/phpunit
vendor/bin/phpstan analyse --memory-limit=1G
vendor/bin/pint --test

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

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Developed and maintained by IntrAgile Kft.

This page is built from the README of version v1.0.0 of the package. Source on GitHubopens in a new tab