Compare a string value in excel using PHPExcel parser - php

Question

I am trying to parse an excel spreadsheet using phpexcel library in php but I can't get the logic correct for comparing a value in the cell.
I am using following code to read values in excel:
$sheet->getCellByColumnAndRow("10", $row)->getValue()
The HTML output is
☑
And when I try to find all the rows with this value using the following logic I never get the equation true.
for ($row = 5; $row <= $highestRow; ++$row) {
if ($sheet->getCellByColumnAndRow("10", $row)->getValue() == '☑') {
echo 'rowno ' . $row . ' ' . 'BOOKED';
echo '<br/>';
}else{
echo strtolower($sheet->getCellByColumnAndRow("10", $row)->getValue()) ;
echo '<br/>';
}
}
Could someone please let me know what I am doing incorrectly here?

Answer 1

In the PHP Developer Documentation, which I found through Google, they use Row- and Celliterators as follows:
$objWorksheet = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet();
foreach ($objWorksheet->getRowIterator() as $row) {
$cellIterator = $row->getCellIterator();
foreach ($cellIterator as $cell) {
$cell->getValue();
}
}
Using this you could use the following to compare it with the wanted value:
$check = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCellByColumnAndRow(10, $row)->getValue();
foreach ($objWorksheet->getRowIterator() as $row) {
$cellIterator = $row->getCellIterator();
foreach ($cellIterator as $cell) {
$value = $cell->getValue();
if($check == $value){
//what you want to happen, if it is true
} else {
//what you want to happen, if it is false
}
}
}

Answer 2

Discovered the value in the excel column is quoted_printable. I found out this by using following code:
foreach(mb_list_encodings() as $chr){
echo 'Row '. $row .'-'. mb_convert_encoding($var2, 'UTF-8', $chr)." : ".$chr."<br>";
}
this displays what encoding is for the value. My case was Quoted-Printable I found the solution here to encode quoted printable characters.