PHPExcel not working php 5.2 AppServ - php

Question

I am using php 5.2.6 in AppServ on a Windows machine and PHPExcel does not seem to work and produces no errors. I have error_reporting set to E_ALL.
On my Linux machine where I am using php 5.6 and using vagrant/homestead the same code works just fine.
Here is my code:
http://pastebin.com/6dJC8gaP
I added some echos to see where exactly it dies, and it seems to die on line 9. I had thought maybe it was an issue with php 5.2 and :: referencing, so I tried using the call_user_func, which also works on my php 5.6 but does not work on my php 5.2

Answer 1

http://php.net/manual/en/function.call-user-func.php
<?php
namespace Foobar;
class Foo {
static public function test() {
print "Hello world!\n";
}
}
call_user_func(__NAMESPACE__ .'\Foo::test'); // As of PHP 5.3.0
call_user_func(array(__NAMESPACE__ .'\Foo', 'test')); // As of PHP 5.3.0
?>
Per page:
Quote:
In PHP v5.2, you /can/ use call_user_func(array($this, 'parent::SOME_FUNCTION')).
If you don't have custom __autoload() function, you are good to go.
If you do have custom __autoload(), you need to make it `parent' aware. Something like:
Rationale: PHP 5.2 surprisingly tries to autoload a class named 'parent'. However, if you don't do anything in __autoload() for the 'parent' class, it'll work just fine.

Answer 2

In PHPExcel/Settings.php there are two references to libxml_disable_entity_loader function.
That function is not available until php 5.2.11, and the # in front of it was causing a silent error.
I did as they suggested and wrapped that function in function_exist checks. Everything works fine now.
Reference: https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel/issues/339