What are the best practices for handling large Excel files in PHP?

Handling large Excel files in PHP can be challenging due to memory limitations and performance issues. One way to address this is by using libraries like PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet, which allows for reading and writing large Excel files efficiently. Additionally, it's recommended to chunk the data into smaller portions to avoid memory exhaustion. 

use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory;

// Load the Excel file
$spreadsheet = IOFactory::load('large_file.xlsx');

// Get the active sheet
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();

// Get the highest row number
$highestRow = $sheet->getHighestRow();

// Chunk the data into smaller portions
$chunkSize = 1000;
for ($startRow = 1; $startRow <= $highestRow; $startRow += $chunkSize) {
    $endRow = min($startRow + $chunkSize - 1, $highestRow);
    
    // Process the data in chunks
    for ($row = $startRow; $row <= $endRow; $row++) {
        // Do something with the data
    }
}

Keywords

PHPExcel PHPExcel_IOFactory memory_limit set_time_limit chunking.

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