How to prevent PHP excel import from removing leading zero in a column?

Question

I tried a tutorial here in https://phppot.com/php/import-excel-file-into-mysql-database-using-php/ to import XLSX file to my database (using PHP)

But the problem is, if the column value started with leading zero, after import, I found out that the leading zero was removed.

How to prevent this?

By the way, my phpmyadmin table for that particular column to be imported is structured as Text column, not integer

I've tried adding '' to treat the file as string but shows no success

$conn = mysqli_connect("localhost","root","test","phpsamples");
require_once('vendor/php-excel-reader/excel_reader2.php');
require_once('vendor/SpreadsheetReader.php');

if (isset($_POST["import"]))
{

  $allowedFileType = ['application/vnd.ms-excel','text/xls','text/xlsx','application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet'];

  if(in_array($_FILES["file"]["type"],$allowedFileType)){

        $targetPath = 'uploads/'.$_FILES['file']['name'];
        move_uploaded_file($_FILES['file']['tmp_name'], $targetPath);

        $Reader = new SpreadsheetReader($targetPath);

        $sheetCount = count($Reader->sheets());

        for($i=0;$i<$sheetCount;$i++)
        {
            $Reader->ChangeSheet($i);

            foreach ($Reader as $Row)
            {

                $name = "";
                if(isset($Row[0])) {
                    $name = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn,$Row[0]);
                }

                $description = "";
                if(isset($Row[1])) {
                    $description = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn,$Row[1]);
                }

                if (!empty($name) || !empty($description)) {
                    $query = "insert into tbl_info(name,description) values('".$name."','".$description."')";
                    $result = mysqli_query($conn, $query);

                    if (! empty($result)) {
                        $type = "success";
                        $message = "Excel Data Imported into the Database";
                    } else {
                        $type = "error";
                        $message = "Problem in Importing Excel Data";
                    }
                }
             }

         }
  }
  else
  { 
        $type = "error";
        $message = "Invalid File Type. Upload Excel File.";
  }
}

Answer 1

Add a leading apostrophe (only if $description starts with a 0 , of course), it will force Excel to read the cell as a text.

if ($description[0] === '0') {
    $description = "'" . $description;
}