I have the following Excel file:

I read it in by looping over every cell and getting the value with getCell(...)->getValue():

$highestColumnAsLetters = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getHighestColumn(); //e.g. 'AK'
$highestRowNumber = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getHighestRow();
$highestColumnAsLetters++;
for ($row = 1; $row < $highestRowNumber + 1; $row++) {
    $dataset = array();
    for ($columnAsLetters = 'A'; $columnAsLetters != $highestColumnAsLetters; $columnAsLetters++) {
        $dataset[] = $this->objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)->getCell($columnAsLetters.$row)->getValue();
        if ($row == 1)
        {
        $this->column_names[] = $columnAsLetters;
        }
    }
    $this->datasets[] = $dataset;
}

However, although it reads in the data fine, it reads in the calculations literally:

I understand from discussions like this one that I can use getCalculatedValue() for calculated cells.

The problem is that in the Excel sheets I am importing, I do not know beforehand which cells are calculated and which are not.

Is there a way for me to read in the value of a cell in a way that automatically gets the value if it has a simple value and gets the result of the calculation if it is a calculation?

Answer:

It turns out that getCalculatedValue() works for all cells, makes me wonder why this isn't the default for getValue() since I would think one would usually want the value of the calculations instead of the equations themselves, in any case this works:

...->getCell($columnAsLetters.$row)->getCalculatedValue();