Reading Excel files in CodeIgniter is actually very easy once you have the right documentation. The first thing you will need to do is utilize the CodeIgniter “Upload” library and add in the Excel Reader library for reading the files. The documentation on the CodeIgniter website in regards to this Excel Reader library is missing some details in implementation. This tutorial will go through the steps of installing the Excel reader library and getting an example implementation working.

Step 1: Download the Excel Reader Library from CodeIgniter’s website.
http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Excel_Reader_Class/

Copy and paste the Excel_reader.php section into notepad or a text editor. Save the file in [CodeIgniter Folder]/system/application/libraries/ as Excel_reader.php

Step 2: Load the Library from your CodeIgniter Application
$this->load->library('excel_reader');

Step 3: Set the load path of the Excel file that has been uploaded
For example:
$uploadpath = "/var/www/uploads/test.xls";

Step 4: Run the Excel Reader Library
$this->excel_reader->read($uploadpath);
// Read the first workbook in the file
$worksheetrows =$this->excel_reader->worksheets[0];

Step 5: Set number of columns in your Excel file
$worksheetcolumns = 5;

Step 6: Run through the table and output the data
I’ve created a quick function that will go through the entire worksheet and output the data for testing.

echo "<table>";
foreach($worksheetrows as $worksheetrow)
{
      echo "<tr>";
     for($i=0; $i<worksheetcolumns; $i++)
    {
           // if the field is not blank -- otherwise CI will throw warnings
           if (isset($worksheetrow[$i]))
                 echo "<td>".$worksheetrow[$i]."</td>";
           // empty field
           else
                 echo "<td>&nbsp; </td>";
     }
     echo "</tr>";
} 
echo "</table>";


This should get you going with reading Excel files in CodeIgniter.

I’ve been noticing that a lot of documentation in CakePHP seems to be spread out onto many different sites. In my opinion, the CakePHP manual isn’t comprehensive enough for learning.

Here’s a list of useful CakePHP resources I’ve used recently:

CakeForge – Great resource for Open Source CakePHP applications. This site has many more applications than the CakePHP Bakery.
http://cakeforge.org/

Bakery – How to use different CSS files in CakePHP
http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/some-ideas-to-organize-your-css-files-and-autoload-them-in-cakephp

Giga Promoters – CakePHP tutorials and scripts:
http://www.gigapromoters.com/blog/category/cakephp/

I’ll be updating this list as I find more resources.

Here’s a quick tip to make cleaner looking URLs in CodeIgniter PHP framework. By default, if you have an application, the path of the application usually ends after index.php.  Using Apache RewriteEngine, you can make cleaner looking URLs. You can have something similar to mysite.com/cigniter/MyApplication instead of mysite.com/cigniter/index.php/MyApplication

• Create a file named “.htaccess” inside your root CodeIgniter directory. It should look like the following:RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|css|robots\.txt)
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /[CODE IGNITER BASE]/index.php/$1 [L]where [CODE IGNITER BASE]  is the directory of your Code Igniter install. For instance, if you named your base install folder “cigniter”, the Rewrite Rule would look like:RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /cigniter/index.php/$1 [L]
• If you get an error, make sure your Apache install allows for RewriteEngine in that particular folder. This is usually located in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/YOURSITE The folder needs to have permissions of:AllowOverride AuthConfig
  Options +FollowSymlinksSee: http://www.whoopis.com/howtos/apache-rewrite.html
• More info on CodeIgniter framework:
  http://codeigniter.com/