Importing to collections

The easiest way to start an import is to create a custom import class. We'll use a user import as example.

Create a new class called UsersImport in app/Imports:

namespace App\Imports;

use App\User;
use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\ToCollection;

class UsersImport implements ToCollection
{
    public function collection(Collection $rows): void
    {
        foreach ($rows as $row) 
        {
            User::create([
                'name' => $row[0],
            ]);
        }
    }
}

The collection method will receive a collection of rows. A row is an array filled with the cell values.

In case of the file having multiple sheets, the collection() method will be called multiple times.

In your controller we can now import this:

public function import() 
{
    Excel::import(new UsersImport, 'users.xlsx');
}

WARNING

Whatever you return in the collection() method will not be returned to the controller.