How to automatically read in calculated values with PHPExcel?

Question

I have the following Excel file:

I read it in by looping over every cell and getting the value with getCell(...)->getValue():

$highestColumnAsLetters = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getHighestColumn(); //e.g. 'AK' $highestRowNumber = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getHighestRow(); $highestColumnAsLetters++; for ($row = 1; $row < $highestRowNumber + 1; $row++) {     $dataset = array();     for ($columnAsLetters = 'A'; $columnAsLetters != $highestColumnAsLetters; $columnAsLetters++) {         $dataset[] = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getCell($columnAsLetters.$row)->getValue();         if ($row == 1)         {         $this->column_names[] = $columnAsLetters;         }     }     $this->datasets[] = $dataset; } 

However, although it reads in the data fine, it reads in the calculations literally:

I understand from discussions like this one that I can use getCalculatedValue() for calculated cells.

The problem is that in the Excel sheets I am importing, I do not know beforehand which cells are calculated and which are not.

Is there a way for me to read in the value of a cell in a way that automatically gets the value if it has a simple value and gets the result of the calculation if it is a calculation?

Answer:

It turns out that getCalculatedValue() works for all cells, makes me wonder why this isn't the default for getValue() since I would think one would usually want the value of the calculations instead of the equations themselves, in any case this works:

...->getCell($columnAsLetters.$row)->getCalculatedValue(); 

Answer 1

getCalculatedValue() seems to work for all cells, see above

Answer 2

If you are unsure about the content of a cell (value or formula included), I recommend you to primarily do a check if the cell has a formula and then copy - paste accordingly. getOldCalculatedValue() is very helpful in this case. Here is an example of that:

$code = $sheet->getCell('A'.$y)->getValue(); if(strstr($code,'=')==true) {     $code = $sheet->getCell('A'.$y)->getOldCalculatedValue(); } $objPHPExcel4->setActiveSheetIndex(0)              ->setCellValue('A'.$l, $code); 

For large data sets, getCalculatedValue() function is really cumbersome and lots of memory will be required to perform correctly.