ExcelMapper: Simplify Excel Data Importation in Your PHP Projects

Esmaeil Bahrani Fard — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 19:27:26 +0000

Managing Excel files in PHP projects can often be a tedious task, especially when it comes to importing data into your application’s database. Enter ExcelMapper, a PHP library designed to simplify this process. ExcelMapper allows you to map Excel columns directly to your database fields, providing a streamlined way to handle data importation.

In this article, I'll walk you through the key features of ExcelMapper, show you how to install and configure it, and provide some practical examples to help you get started.

Installation

You can install ExcelMapper using Composer:

composer require esmaeil/excelmapper

Basic Usage
Let’s dive into a basic example. Suppose you have an Excel file with the following structure:

| C   | E       | G        | N           | O          | P           |
|-----|---------|----------|-------------|------------|-------------|
| 123 | 456789  | John Doe | 09123456789 | 2023-12-31 | 123 Elm St  |

You want to map these columns to your database fields. With ExcelMapper, you can do this seamlessly.

The ExcelDataProcessor Class
The core of ExcelMapper is the ExcelDataProcessor class, which handles the mapping and processing of Excel data:

Here’s an example of a custom parser that converts Persian/Arabic digits to English digits:

use ExcelMapper\DataProcessor\ExcelDataProcessor;
use ExcelMapper\Parsers\DefaultParser;
use ExcelMapper\Parsers\DateColumn;

$processor = new ExcelDataProcessor();

$sheetData = [
    ['C', 'E', 'G', 'N', 'O', 'P'],  // Excel columns as a reference
    [123, 456789, 'John Doe', '۰۹۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹', '2023-12-31', '123 Elm St'],  // Data row
];

$mapping = [
    'C' => 'insurance_code',
    'E' => 'national_id',
    'G' => ['customer_name', DefaultParser::class],
    'N' => ['mobile', DefaultParser::class],
    'O' => ['expiry_date', DateColumn::class],
    'P' => 'address',
];

$processor->process($sheetData, $mapping, function ($mappedData) {
    // Here, $mappedData will contain the processed data ready for database insertion
    print_r($mappedData);
});

Mapping Columns
In this example, we map specific Excel columns (like 'C', 'E', etc.) to database fields such as 'insurance_code', 'national_id', and more. The ExcelDataProcessor takes care of converting the Excel column letters to their corresponding zero-based indices and applying any necessary parsers, like converting Persian digits to English.

Custom Parsers
Sometimes, you need to process data in specific ways before importing it. For example, you might need to convert dates or clean up phone numbers. ExcelMapper allows you to define custom parsers, which are applied to the data during the processing stage.

Here’s how you can define a simple parser:

namespace ExcelMapper\Parsers;

use ExcelMapper\Interfaces\ColumnParserInterface;
use ExcelMapper\Utils\DataHelper;

class DigitsParser implements ColumnParserInterface
{
    public function parse(mixed $value): string|array
    {
        if ($value === null) {
            return $value;
        }

        return DataHelper::convertDigits($value);
    }
}

Conclusion
ExcelMapper simplifies the process of importing data from Excel files into your PHP projects. By leveraging custom parsers, column mapping, and a robust data processing engine, you can quickly integrate Excel data into your applications. Whether you're dealing with simple spreadsheets or complex data transformations, ExcelMapper offers a flexible solution.

If you're looking to streamline your data import processes, give ExcelMapper a try. You can find the full code and more examples on GitHub.

Responsive Design with SCSS: A Handy and Beautiful Approach

Esmaeil Bahrani Fard — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 18:43:53 +0000

In the ever-evolving world of web development, responsive design has become a crucial aspect of creating user-friendly and accessible websites. SCSS (Sassy CSS) is a powerful extension of CSS that offers enhanced flexibility and organization for styling web pages. In this article, we will explore a handy and beautiful approach to managing responsive design using SCSS.

Breakpoints and the Breakpoints Map:
One of the key elements in responsive design is defining breakpoints, which are specific screen widths where your website's layout and styling need to adapt. In our SCSS approach, we start by defining a breakpoints map. The breakpoints map is a Sass map that associates names (such as xxs, xs, sm, md, lg, xl) with corresponding screen widths.

The breakpoints map is defined as follows:

$breakpoints: (
  xxs: 480px,
  xs: 768px,
  sm: 991px,
  md: 1280px,
  lg: 1920px,
  xl: 5000px
);

Media Queries Mixin:
To handle the responsive behavior, we create a mixin named break that takes a breakpoint name as a parameter. The mixin checks if the provided breakpoint exists in the breakpoints map. If it does, it extracts the maximum width associated with that breakpoint and generates a media query with the provided styles.

The break mixin is defined as follows:

@mixin break($breakpoint) {
  @if map-has-key($breakpoints, $breakpoint) {
    $max-width: map-get($breakpoints, $breakpoint);
    @media screen and (max-width: $max-width) {
      @content;
    }
  } @else {
    @error "Invalid breakpoint: #{$breakpoint}.";
  }
}

Usage Example:
Now let's see how we can use the break mixin in our SCSS styles. Imagine we have an element with the class .my-element, and we want to apply different styles based on different breakpoints.

.my-element {
  @include break(xs) {
    // Styles for extra-small devices
  }

  @include break(sm) {
    // Styles for small devices
  }
}

In the above example, for screen widths smaller than or equal to 600px (xs breakpoint), the styles within the break(xs) block will be applied. Similarly, for screen widths smaller than or equal to 991px (sm breakpoint), the styles within the break(sm) block will be applied.

Conclusion:
With the handy and beautiful SCSS code provided in this article, managing responsive design becomes more organized and efficient. By defining breakpoints and utilizing the break mixin, you can easily adapt your website's layout and styles to different screen sizes. SCSS empowers developers to create responsive designs with ease, providing a better user experience across various devices.

Download scss source:
For easier access to the entire source code, you can download it from the gist on GitHub.

DEV Community: Esmaeil Bahrani Fard

ExcelMapper: Simplify Excel Data Importation in Your PHP Projects

Installation

Responsive Design with SCSS: A Handy and Beautiful Approach