1 Media Software Design DIG 3134 Fall 2011 Lecture 18: Excel, PDF J. Michael Moshell University of Central Florida Original image* by Moshell et al.

-2 - Four Easy(?) Add-ons for PHP 1. Creating Excel (.xls) files 2. Reading Excel files 3. Uploading files 4. Creating PDF documents

-3 - Creating an Excel file CREATING Excel: My method is ONLY useful for downloading to the browser – NOT for storing a file directly to disk on the server. NOTE: This code will NOT work if anything, even a single character, is emitted by the PHP code before the 'emitxls' function is called.

-4 - Creating an Excel file function emitxls($data) { header("Content-type: application/octet-stream"); # from: forge.typo3.org/issues/show/3765 header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=output.xls"); header('Pragma: public'); header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul :00:00 GMT"); // Date in past header('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s'). ' GMT'); header('Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate'); header('Cache-Control: pre-check=0, post-check=0, max-age=0'); echo $data; } #emitxls

-5 - Creating an Excel file ///// MAIN PROGRAM ///// $t="\t"; // Tab character $n="\n"; // Newline character $data="Line 1".$t."column 2".$t."column 3".$n; $data.="Line 2".$t."l2 column 2".$t."l2 column 3".$n; $data.="Line 3".$t."l3 column 2".$t."l3 column 3".$n; emitxls($data); ?>

-6 - A Demo that Doesn't work Here's one that DOES work: xlsdemo1.php <?php // etc Here's one that DOES NOT work: just add a space at top of xlsdemos <?php //etc NOTE: The response VARIES from one Apache environment to another. (Sometimes error message; sometimes text on screen.) Sometimes hard to notice the blank line at top

-7 - Moving on... how to READ Excel. I use a small library called excel_reader2.php. It uses PHP Objects, as follows: $data = new Spreadsheet_Excel_Reader($filename); // This Spreadsheet_Excel_Reader is a CLASS defined in the excel_reader library. // Now we use two accessor functions to find out how big the spreadsheet is $colcnt=$data->colcount(); $rowmax=$data->rowcount();

-8 - Reading an Excel File (Local) Demonstrate and experiment with xlsdemo2.php Items to note: 1) This function does NOT ask the user to upload an Excel file. It works with a file that is local to the PHP code. So this operation is not 'symmetric' with the code to emit a file, that I gave you previously. 2) If the file is not found, or if it's defective, you will get a zero value for 'rowmax'. Note the error message in my getspreadsheet function.

-9 - Uploading a file (image) Demonstrate and experiment with upload.php Items to note: 1) $_FILES is analogous to $_POST or $_GET i. e. it's a "built-in global array". 2) I've not yet managed to get an error, so haven't seen "Error Return Code" in action. 3) Functions to understand: end, in_array, file_exists, move_uploaded_file

-10 - Uploading a file (excel) Demonstrate and experiment with uploadexcel.php Items to note: 1) I simplified it considerably from upload.php 2) I used !$target to tell if this was the first pass, and to emit the form if this was the case. 3) This one DELIBERATELY overwrites workfile.xls, because you will presumably now use the excel_reader2.php library to pull workfile.xls into your software for whatever purpose....

-11 - Producing a PDF File Somewhat similar to Excel production, in that the PDF can be sent to the browser. BUT you can also save a copy of the PDF file on your host. Somewhat similar to the Excel reader, in that a special library is used. BUT the library is much bigger and more complex. (18 megabytes) Tour the tcpdf website at

-12 - PDF Example 1 There are many examples at See my pdfdemo1.txt Example 1 uses the writeHTMLcell( ) function, which allows you to use HTML to format your text. BUT HTML has substantial limits for formatting! (e. g. font control.)

-13 - PDF Example 2 Read the code. Understand these methods: $pdf->SetFont() $pdf->AddPage(); $pdf->Text() $pdf->Line() $pdf->Output()

-14 - The Output method Send the document to a given destination void Output ([string $name = ''], [string $dest = '']) string $name: The name of the file. If not given, the document will be sent to the browser (destination I) with the name doc.pdf. string $dest: Destination where to send the document. It can take one of the following values: I: send the file inline to the browser D: send to the browser and force a file download with the name given by name. F: save to a local file with the name given by name.

-15 - cURL When a PHP program needs to invoke another Internet site client URL Library supports http, https ftp, gopher, telnet, dict, file, ldap proxies, cookies, user-password authentication

-16 - cURL Demonstrate cURL: -mograb.php = A PHP program that reads another website and "screen scrapes" some information.

-17 - cURL in action Browser The mograb.php 'scraper' program Program sends an http message via CURL The scraped Site "goldprice.html" Access a URL to run PHP program

-18 - cURL in action Browser The mograb.php 'scraper' program Program sends an http message via CURL The scraped Site "goldprice.html" Access a URL to run PHP program Server Returns the text Of goldprice.html CURL sends reply to calling program

-19 - cURL in action Browser The mograb.php 'scraper' program Program sends an http message via CURL The scraped Site "goldprice.html" Access a URL to run PHP program Server Returns the text Of goldprice.html CURL sends reply to calling program Mograb creates html to deliver the scraped information Plus whatever else you want To tell your user.

-20 - cURL demo 2 Demonstrate cURL: -Mograb2.php This just shows that cURL can call a website that is not just in localhost (namely,

-21 - cURL demo 3 Demonstrate memcheck.php A little "fake" membership checking site > Joe Wilson > Mary Lebone anything else ->NOT a member -Mograb3.php

-22 - Summary of Lecture Emit XLS: Just a header and some tabs and newlines Read XLS: A small (free) library of PHP code Upload files: Write PDF: A large (free) library with many capabilities Link to other websites: A built-in PHP capability called cURL

-23 - PROJECT 3 – Clean-Up! If you DO NOT SEE PROJECT 3 in the grades-ranked.xls chart

-24 - PROJECT 3 – Clean-Up! If you DO NOT SEE PROJECT 3 in the grades-ranked.xls chart and if you DID NOT GET FROM ME (about your project)

-25 - PROJECT 3 – Clean-Up! If you DO NOT SEE PROJECT 3 in the grades-ranked.xls chart and if you DID NOT GET FROM ME (about your project) We must fix it TODAY or it's gone --- time to focus on Project 4 and Final Exam