README

Fast Excel import/export for Laravel, thanks to Spout. See benchmarks below.

Quick start

Install via composer:

composer require rap2hpoutre/fast-excel

Export a Model to .xlsx file:

use Rap2hpoutre\FastExcel\FastExcel;
use App\User;

// Load users
$users = User::all();

// Export all users
(new FastExcel($users))->export('file.xlsx');

Export

Export a Model, Query or Collection:

$list = collect([
    [ 'id' => 1, 'name' => 'Jane' ],
    [ 'id' => 2, 'name' => 'John' ],
]);

// export() returns the absolute path to the written file
$path = (new FastExcel($list))->export('file.xlsx');

Export xlsx, ods and csv:

$invoices = App\Invoice::orderBy('created_at', 'DESC')->get();
(new FastExcel($invoices))->export('invoices.csv');

Export only some attributes specifying columns names:

(new FastExcel(User::all()))->export('users.csv', function ($user) {
    return [
        'Email' => $user->email,
        'First Name' => $user->firstname,
        'Last Name' => strtoupper($user->lastname),
    ];
});

Download (from a controller method):

return (new FastExcel(User::all()))->download('file.xlsx');

Import

import returns a Collection:

$collection = (new FastExcel)->import('file.xlsx');

Import a csv with specific delimiter, enclosure characters and "gbk" encoding:

$collection = (new FastExcel)->configureCsv(';', '#', 'gbk')->import('file.csv');

Import and insert to database:

$users = (new FastExcel)->import('file.xlsx', function ($line) {
    return User::create([
        'name' => $line['Name'],
        'email' => $line['Email']
    ]);
});

Facades

You may use FastExcel with the optional Facade. Add the following line to config/app.php under the aliases key.

'FastExcel' => Rap2hpoutre\FastExcel\Facades\FastExcel::class,

Using the Facade, you will not have access to the constructor. You may set your export data using the data method.

$list = collect([
    [ 'id' => 1, 'name' => 'Jane' ],
    [ 'id' => 2, 'name' => 'John' ],
]);

FastExcel::data($list)->export('file.xlsx');

Global helper

FastExcel provides a convenient global helper to quickly instantiate the FastExcel class anywhere in a Laravel application.

$collection = fastexcel()->import('file.xlsx');
fastexcel($collection)->export('file.xlsx');

Advanced usage

Export multiple sheets

Export multiple sheets by creating a SheetCollection:

$sheets = new SheetCollection([
    User::all(),
    Project::all()
]);
(new FastExcel($sheets))->export('file.xlsx');

Use index to specify sheet name:

$sheets = new SheetCollection([
    'Users' => User::all(),
    'Second sheet' => Project::all()
]);

Import multiple sheets

Import multiple sheets by using importSheets:

$sheets = (new FastExcel)->importSheets('file.xlsx');

You can also import a specific sheet by its number:

$users = (new FastExcel)->sheet(3)->import('file.xlsx');

Import multiple sheets with sheets names:

$sheets = (new FastExcel)->withSheetsNames()->importSheets('file.xlsx');

Export large collections with chunk

Export rows one by one to avoid memory_limit issues using yield:

function usersGenerator() {
    foreach (User::cursor() as $user) {
        yield $user;
    }
}

// Export consumes only a few MB, even with 10M+ rows.
(new FastExcel(usersGenerator()))->export('test.xlsx');

Import large files (low memory)

import returns a Collection containing every row, so memory grows with the size of the file. On a file larger than your PHP memory_limit, the default import() fails outright with Allowed memory size of N bytes exhausted. To import a large file without running out of memory, pass a callback and return null — each row is then processed but not accumulated, so memory stays flat:

// Memory stays flat regardless of the number of rows.
(new FastExcel)->import('file.xlsx', function ($line) {
    User::create([
        'name'  => $line['Name'],
        'email' => $line['Email'],
    ]);

    return null; // don't keep the row in memory
});

If the callback returns a value (for example the created model), that value is collected and returned to you — handy for small files, but it keeps every row in memory. Return null when you only need the side effect (e.g. inserting rows).

Importing a 730,000-row file (8 columns), measured under a constrained memory_limit:

How you import	Peak memory	Result
`import($file)` (returns a Collection)	~440 MB	fails once it exceeds `memory_limit`
`import($file, fn ($row) => null)` (streaming)	~4 MB	always completes

Reading speed is the same either way — it is dominated by the underlying OpenSpout parser, not by how the rows are returned. The difference above is memory, which is what lets very large files finish at all.

Add header and rows style

Add header and rows style with headerStyle and rowsStyle methods.

use OpenSpout\Common\Entity\Style\Style;

$header_style = (new Style())->setFontBold();

$rows_style = (new Style())
    ->setFontSize(15)
    ->setShouldWrapText()
    ->setBackgroundColor("EDEDED");

return (new FastExcel($list))
    ->headerStyle($header_style)
    ->rowsStyle($rows_style)
    ->download('file.xlsx');

Why?

FastExcel is intended at being Laravel-flavoured Spout: a simple, but elegant wrapper around Spout with the goal of simplifying imports and exports. It could be considered as a faster (and memory friendly) alternative to Laravel Excel, with less features. Use it only for simple tasks.

Benchmarks

Tested on a MacBook Pro 2015 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5 16 Go 1867 MHz DDR3. Testing a XLSX export for 10000 lines, 20 columns with random data, 10 iterations, 2018-04-05. Don't trust benchmarks.

	Average memory peak usage	Execution time
Laravel Excel	123.56 M	11.56 s
FastExcel	2.09 M	2.76 s

Still, remember that Laravel Excel has many more features.

rap2hpoutre / fast-excel

Maintainers

Package info

Fund package maintenance!

Statistics

Security