Empty PHPExcel file using liuggio/ExcelBundle in Symfony - excel

Question

I have some code that iterates over the rows and columns of an Excel sheet and replaces text with other text. This is done with a service that has the excel file and a dictionary as parameters like this.
$mappedTemplate = $this->get('app.entity.translate')->translate($phpExcelObject, $dictionary);
The service itself looks like this.
public function translate($template, $dictionary)
{
foreach ($template->getWorksheetIterator() as $worksheet) {
foreach ($worksheet->getRowIterator() as $row) {
$cellIterator = $row->getCellIterator();
$cellIterator->setIterateOnlyExistingCells(false); // Loop all cells, even if it is not set
foreach ($cellIterator as $cell) {
if (!is_null($cell)) {
if (!is_null($cell->getCalculatedValue())) {
if (array_key_exists((string)$cell->getCalculatedValue(), $dictionary)) {
$worksheet->setCellValue(
$cell->getCoordinate(),
$dictionary[$cell->getCalculatedValue()]
);
}
}
}
}
}
}
return $template;
}
After some debugging I found out that the text actually is replaced and that the service works like it should. The problem is that when I return the new PHPExcel file as a response to download, the excel is empty.
This is the code I use to return the file.
// create the writer
$writer = $this->get('phpexcel')->createWriter($mappedTemplate, 'Excel5');
// create the response
$response = $this->get('phpexcel')->createStreamedResponse($writer);
// adding headers
$dispositionHeader = $response->headers->makeDisposition(
ResponseHeaderBag::DISPOSITION_ATTACHMENT,
$file_name
);
$response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
$response->headers->set('Pragma', 'public');
$response->headers->set('Cache-Control', 'maxage=1');
$response->headers->set('Content-Disposition', $dispositionHeader);
return $response;
What am I missing?

Answer 1

Your code is missing the calls to the writer.
You only create the writer, but never use it, at least not in your shared code examples:
$objWriter = new PHPExcel_Writer_Excel2007($objPHPExcel);
$response = $this->get('phpexcel')->createStreamedResponse($objWriter)
Another thing is the content type: Do you have the apache content types setup correctly?
$response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/vnd.ms-excel; charset=utf-8');