PHP import Excel data to MySQL using PHPExcel

Here, you will learn how to import Excel data into the MySQL database using the PHPExcel library. PHPExcel is a library written in pure PHP and provides a set of classes that allow you to write to and read from different spreadsheet file formats.

The web applications may contain data in various formats or they may have to collect data from various sources. It is not necessary that all the gathered data be compatible for storage on the server. Most large-scale websites use server-side code to dynamically display different data when needed. A database stores information more efficiently and can handle volumes of information that would be unmanageable in a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets have record limitations, whereas a database does not. So, we need to store this data in a database for future use. Here, we are using the PHPExcel library to import a CSV file into a PHP database. You can easily implement this by following these steps.

These are the steps to import Excel data to MySQL using PHPExcel-

Install PHPExcel with Composer

First, we need to install the PHPExcel library to read excel data. You can either download this from Github or install it using Composer. If your system does not have composer installed, then first download the latest composer version from its official website-

https://getcomposer.org/download/

You can check a successful installation using the following command on cmd-

Now, go to your project directory on the command prompt and run the following command to install the PHPExcel library.

E:\wamp\www\exceltomysql>composer require phpoffice/phpexcel

After this, you will notice that Composer has downloaded all libraries under the 'vendor' directory of your project root. Here is the file structure of this project-

Excel File

Suppose we have the following excel file containing school program participants data-

Database Script (db.php)

Here, we have written the database connection code. Make sure to replace 'hostname', 'username', 'password' and 'database' with your database credentials and name.

<?php
	$hostname = "localhost";
	$db = "school";
	$password = "";
	$user = "root";
	$mysqli = new mysqli($hostname, $user, $password, $db);
?>

If we want to store or import Excel data into the MySQL database, we need a database table. So, we have a MySQL database 'school' and in it we have to create a 'participants' table with the given columns.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `participants` (
  `Id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `rollno` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `name` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `age` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `program` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`Id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

Create Upload File Template

To create a file uploader, we have created a simple HTML file upload form 'index.php'. If a form contains any file type input field, then we have to add an attribute 'encrypt' with a value of 'multipart/form-data'.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<title>PHP import Excel data</title>
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
	<h1>Upload Excel File</h1>
	<form method="POST" action="uploadexcel.php" enctype="multipart/form-data">
		<div class="form-group">
			<label>Choose File</label>
			<input type="file" name="uploadFile" class="form-control" />
		</div>
		<div class="form-group">
			<button type="submit" name="submit" class="btn btn-success">Upload</button>
		</div>
	</form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Parse Excel and Insert into Database (uploadexcel.php)

In this PHP code, we have validated the uploaded file type and then included the PHPExcel library files and database configuration file (db.php). We have validated the execution of each logical code. It returns an error message on failure. Further, PHPExcel parses the excel file, reads the data, and stores it in an array. We have looped over this array to insert data into the database and show the response to the web browser.

<?php  

if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {
     if(isset($_FILES['uploadFile']['name']) && $_FILES['uploadFile']['name'] != "") {
        $allowedExtensions = array("xls","xlsx");
        $ext = pathinfo($_FILES['uploadFile']['name'], PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
		
        if(in_array($ext, $allowedExtensions)) {
				// Uploaded file
               $file = "uploads/".$_FILES['uploadFile']['name'];
               $isUploaded = copy($_FILES['uploadFile']['tmp_name'], $file);
			   // check uploaded file
               if($isUploaded) {
					// Include PHPExcel files and database configuration file
                    include("db.php");
					require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
                    include(__DIR__ .'/vendor/phpoffice/phpexcel/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php');
                    try {
                        // load uploaded file
                        $objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($file);
                    } catch (Exception $e) {
                         die('Error loading file "' . pathinfo($file, PATHINFO_BASENAME). '": ' . $e->getMessage());
                    }
                    
                    // Specify the excel sheet index
                    $sheet = $objPHPExcel->getSheet(0);
                    $total_rows = $sheet->getHighestRow();
					$highestColumn      = $sheet->getHighestColumn();	
					$highestColumnIndex = PHPExcel_Cell::columnIndexFromString($highestColumn);		
					
					//	loop over the rows
					for ($row = 1; $row <= $total_rows; ++ $row) {
						for ($col = 0; $col < $highestColumnIndex; ++ $col) {
							$cell = $sheet->getCellByColumnAndRow($col, $row);
							$val = $cell->getValue();
							$records[$row][$col] = $val;
						}
					}
					$html="<table border='1'>";
					$html.="<tr><th>Roll No</th>";
					$html.="<th>Name</th><th>Age</th>";
					$html.="<th>Program</th></tr>";
					foreach($records as $row){
						// HTML content to render on webpage
						$html.="<tr>";
						$rollno = isset($row[0]) ? $row[0] : '';
						$name = isset($row[1]) ? $row[1] : '';
						$age = isset($row[2]) ? $row[2] : '';
						$program = isset($row[3]) ? $row[3] : '';
						$html.="<td>".$rollno."</td>";
						$html.="<td>".$name."</td>";
						$html.="<td>".$age."</td>";
						$html.="<td>".$program."</td>";
						$html.="</tr>";
						// Insert into database
						$query = "INSERT INTO participants (rollno,name,age,program) 
								values('".$rollno."','".$name."','".$age."','".$program."')";
						$mysqli->query($query);		
					}
					$html.="</table>";
					echo $html;
					echo "<br/>Data inserted in Database";
				
                    unlink($file);
                } else {
                    echo '<span class="msg">File not uploaded!</span>';
                }
        } else {
            echo '<span class="msg">Please upload excel sheet.</span>';
        }
    } else {
        echo '<span class="msg">Please upload excel file.</span>';
    }
}
?>

On successful execution, the data will be inserted in the database as in the given screenshot-

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