Laravel Excel Cannot use object of type stdClass as array - excel

Question

I'm having to use DB::select instead of calling a Model because my data structure is too complex.
My main SQL query is;
/* main mysql query */
$sql = "SELECT t1.* FROM `contracts`.`payments` as t1 LEFT JOIN `postcodes`.`" . $postcode_dataset . "` AS t2 ON t1.`VendorZIP` = t2.`postcode` WHERE ";
foreach ($unserialized_input as $key => $value) {
$sql .= "t2." . $key . " IN ('".implode("', '", $unserialized_input[$key])."') OR ";
}
$sql = rtrim($sql, " OR ");
$payments = DB::select($sql);
I am trying to use Maatwebsite Excel to export the result by doing this;
Excel::create('SME_Payments_Export-U', function($excel) use ($payments) {
$excel->sheet('Excel sheet', function($sheet) use ($payments) {
$sheet->setOrientation('landscape');
$sheet->fromArray($payments);
});
})->export('csv');
But I get the error;
Cannot use object of type stdClass as array
Here is a sample of my var_dump;
array(176) {
[0]=>
object(stdClass)#302 (4) {
["Fiscal Year"]=>
string(5) "13/14"
["Contract Number"]=>
string(0) ""
["Foreign Ind"]=>
string(1) "N"
["Valued or Running"]=>
string(1) "R"
}
[1]=>
object(stdClass)#304 (4) {
["Fiscal Year"]=>
string(5) "13/14"
["Contract Number"]=>
string(0) ""
["Foreign Ind"]=>
string(1) "Y"
["Valued or Running"]=>
string(1) "V"
}
[2]=>
object(stdClass)#305 (4) {
["Fiscal Year"]=>
string(5) "13/14"
["Contract Number"]=>
string(0) ""
["Foreign Ind"]=>
string(1) "N"
["Valued or Running"]=>
string(1) "R"
}
How can I convert payments?

Answer 1

As per documentation you need to transform array of objects to array of arrays before passing it to fromArray() method:
foreach ($payments as &$payment) {
$payment = (array)$payment;
}
$sheet->fromArray($payments);

Answer 2

I have faced same problem and what worked for me best is:
$payments = json_decode( json_encode($payments), true);
This will convert object/array to array and make it usable.