Formatting a date in PHPExcel that can be updated after XLS is generated

Question

I'm try to output a date using PHPExcel where the format can be changed after generating the file.

So for example, I output the date, like this:

23/04/1989

And I can then format the cells, change the format and it shows something like:

April 23rd 1989

I've tried this approach (using the code below) and generated a file. When I click on the date cell and try to format it, it appears to have worked since it has the 'Date' category highlighted and the correct 'Type'.

However, if I change the format and click OK, the cell doesn't change it's format.

Here's my code:

$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setCellValueExplicit('A1', '23/04/1989');
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getStyle('A1')->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_DATE_YYYYMMDDSLASH);

Is this a limitation in Excel or am I not going about this the correct way?

Answer 1

You need to convert your date to an Excel serialized date/time stamp, and store that in the cell

$dateValue = PHPExcel_Shared_Date::PHPToExcel( strtotime('23-Apr-1989') );
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
    ->setCellValue('A1', $dateValue);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
    ->getStyle('A1')
    ->getNumberFormat()
    ->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_DATE_YYYYMMDDSLASH);

Note that PHPExcel_Shared_Date::PHPToExcel() accepts a unix timestamp or a DateTime object

$dateValue = PHPExcel_Shared_Date::PHPToExcel( 
    DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', '23/04/1989') 
);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
    ->setCellValue('A1', $dateValue);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
    ->getStyle('A1')
    ->getNumberFormat()
    ->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_DATE_YYYYMMDDSLASH);

And as your date of 23/04/1989 would be treated as m/d/Y by PHP (and therefore not what you'd expected - see PHP's accepted format rules ) using DateTime::createFromFormat() allows you to specify that it's d/m/Y