PHPExcel prevent calculating formula - excel

Question

I'm trying to convert a CSV file to a XLSX file using PHPExcel library. Once the csv file is read into PHPExcel object and before saving it as a xlsx file, I recalculate and set column widths based on relevant column content.
$objReader = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createReader('CSV');
$objPHPExcel = $objReader->load("test.csv");
$activesheet = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet();
$lastColumn = $activesheet->getHighestColumn(); // get last column with data
$lastColumn++;
for ($column = 'A'; $column != $lastColumn; $column++) { // for each column until last
$activesheet->getColumnDimension($column)->setAutoSize(true); // set autowidth
}
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
$objWriter->save("downloads/test.xls");
with bit of a research i found that if there are any formulas in the file, call to setAutoSize() calculates the value for them to make use when calculating the column width.
My problem is that some of my csv files contain values that begins with = (equal sign) which are not formulas. for ex. cell values like '===='. This causes above code to throw an error PHPExcel_Calculation_Exception Formula Error: An unexpected error occured.
Since I know that any of my input csv files cannot contain formulas, is there a way to prevent PHPExcel calculating values for cells which contain values beginning with = sign?

Answer 1

After research and given suggestions I ended up iterating through all the cells and rewriting cell values (beginning with = sign), to prevent PHPExcel considering them as formulas. setCellValueExplicit() method instructs PHPExcel to not consider the cell value as a formula in this case.
foreach ($objPHPExcel->getWorksheetIterator() as $worksheet) {
foreach ($worksheet->getRowIterator() as $row) {
$cellIterator = $row->getCellIterator();
$cellIterator->setIterateOnlyExistingCells(true);
foreach ($cellIterator as $cell) {
if (preg_match( '/^=/', $cell->getValue())) {
$cellcoordinate = $cell->getCoordinate();
$worksheet->setCellValueExplicit($cellcoordinate,$worksheet->getCell($cellcoordinate));
}
}
}
}
It's painful, but couldn't find a better solution.