Laravel-excel: "count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable"

[Jaspur]

Happening on both PHP7.1 and PHP7.2.

[2017-12-21 22:34:33] acceptance.INFO: ErrorException: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /home/forge/website.com/releases/20171221213319/vendor/maatwebsite/excel/src/Maatwebsite/Excel/Classes/LaravelExcelWorksheet.php:599
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Illuminate\Foundation\Bootstrap\HandleExceptions->handleError(2, 'count(): Parame...', '/home/forge/acc...', 599, Array)
#1 /home/forge/website.com/releases/20171221213319/vendor/maatwebsite/excel/src/Maatwebsite/Excel/Classes/LaravelExcelWorksheet.php(599): count(92)
#2 /home/forge/website.com/releases/20171221213319/vendor/maatwebsite/excel/src/Maatwebsite/Excel/Classes/LaravelExcelWorksheet.php(556): Maatwebsite\Excel\Classes\LaravelExcelWorksheet->addData(Array)
#3 /home/forge/website.com/releases/20171221213319/vendor/maatwebsite/excel/src/Maatwebsite/Excel/Classes/LaravelExcelWorksheet.php(478): Maatwebsite\Excel\Classes\LaravelExcelWorksheet->_addVars(Object(Illuminate\Support\Collection), false, NULL, 'A1', false)

[xRahul]

Which version are you using @Jaspur ? Seems like count function is called on non-countable variable. Looks like an easy fix.

[xRahul]

Pull Requests:
2.1: https://github.com/Maatwebsite/Laravel-Excel/pull/1468
2.0: https://github.com/Maatwebsite/Laravel-Excel/pull/1469

[andyunleashed]

Have run into this issue also - running on Laravel 5.5 & PHP 7.2.

I have updated the package to the latest version (2.1.24) which I believe was intended to include a fix for this issue, but apparently it still persists.

[andyunleashed]

Just a bit of further info on this - it's triggered when I run $export->download('xlsx'); but csv works fine.

[andyunleashed]

Okay so from further digging the error I'm encountering actually comes from phpoffice/phpexcel:

/vendor/phpoffice/phpexcel/Classes/PHPExcel/Writer/Excel2007/Worksheet.php:768

On this line they do:
if (count($columns > 0))

Which is obviously where the route of the issue comes from, if I just swap this to do a simple !empty then it goes through fine.

Update: it only occurs when using ->setAutoFilter()

[SimZal]

I can confirm the issue with count(NULL) @andyunleashed mentioned. Since it's happening within an unsupported repository I don't see a clean solution. I used an ugly temporary fix , but there has to be a better way.

[patrickbrouwers]

Fix in this package was released, fixes needing to happen in PHPExcel, we can't do anything about.

[andyunleashed]

Since PHPExcel was last updated in 2015 I don't see that happening any time soon. Is there anything on the roadmap to move to PHPSpreadsheet which appears to be the successor?

[patrickbrouwers]

Soonish, but it won’t be backwards compatible.

[S43534]

...talking about ugly workarounds: I "fixed" this by adding the following to composer.json:

"post-install-cmd": [
    "Illuminate\\Foundation\\ComposerScripts::postInstall",
    "sed -i '768s/.*/if(!empty($columns)){/' vendor/phpoffice/phpexcel/Classes/PHPExcel/Writer/Excel2007/Worksheet.php"
],
"post-update-cmd": [
    "Illuminate\\Foundation\\ComposerScripts::postUpdate",
    "sed -i '768s/.*/if(!empty($columns)){/' vendor/phpoffice/phpexcel/Classes/PHPExcel/Writer/Excel2007/Worksheet.php"
]

It just replaces the faulty line after each composer update or composer install.

[fmiqbal]

@S43534 I dunno what you just did, but I "fixed" it too, whats the side effect ?

[piotrekkr]

I think more proper way of fixing this would be:

1. fork this repository and fix bug in code
2. change composer.json inf forked project so it will have updated project name
   "name": "fork-account/phpexcel",
3. push changes to forked project
4. update your project composer.json require section:
   "fork-account/phpexcel": "dev-master#LATEST_COMMIT_HASH_WITH_FIX"
5. add repositories to composer.json
"repositories": [ { "type": "vcs", "url": "https://github.com/fork-account/phpexcel.git" } ],