title: How do I use PHPExcel to read data from an Excel file?
body: <p>I want to read data from an Excel file in PHP so that I can process the data and insert it into a DB.<br>
  Looking around SO, it looks like PHPExcel is the premier library for this task.</p>
  
  <p>I went to the PHPExcel GitHub page (<a href="https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel" rel="noreferrer">https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel</a>), but I cannot figure out how to actually use the library. There are a ton of example files and none of the ones I looked at seem to match the simple use case I'm looking for.<br>
  Furthermore, I cannot even figure out which files from the GitHub page I even need to download and what the folder structure for the include file(s) needs to be.</p>
  
  <p>As such, given the way the GitHub page linked above is structured now (for v1.8), what files do I need to download and what is a simple code example that allows me to provide a path to an Excel file and read the data from the file?</p>