php - Load excel file into PHP_Excel from variable

Question

I currently have this

file_put_contents($tmpfile, $attachments[0]['body']);
$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($tmpfile);

The file I am reading is extracted from an email, so rather then writing it to a tempfile I would like to read it directly into phpexcel from a string (if that makes sense)

$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($attachments[0]['body']);

I have looked at the php excel manual but can't see how to do it, any ideas?

Answer 1

This might not be the most elegant solution but here is how I solved it:

public function fromString($data=null)
{
    $file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'excel_');
    $handle = fopen($file, "w");
    fwrite($handle, $data);
    $return = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($file);
    fclose($handle);
    unlink($file);
    return $return;
}