<?php
// The above import function can be easily extended using 
// /usr/local/bin/xls2csv (part of catdoc ) and popen 
// to read excell files directly. 
// In our particular application the first line was the file heading.
function importxls($file,$head=true,$throwfirst=true,$delim=",",$len=1000) {
   $return = false;
   $handle = popen("/usr/local/bin/xls2csv $file", "r");
// or die if not there.
   if ($throwfirst) {
       $throw = fgetcsv($handle, $len, $delim);
   }
   if ($head) {
       $header = fgetcsv($handle, $len, $delim);
   }
   while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, $len, $delim)) !== FALSE) {
       if ($head AND isset($header)) {
           foreach ($header as $key=>$heading) {
               $row[$heading]=(isset($data[$key])) ? $data[$key] : '';
               print "<li>". $heading ."=>" . $row[$heading]."</li>";
           }
           $return[]=$row;
       } else {
           $return[]=$data;
       }
   }
   fclose($handle);
   return $return;
}
?>