parsing excel files

[devilinc]

my issue is each time a user selcts a category or sub category, the excel file stored in server is fetched, read and output its contents and then closed again.....its quite cumbersome cos what if multiple users were logged into the system doing this same process....server load wud b definitely high......so,i would like to parse excel files and store it as an array so that data can be retrieved from the array rather than opening the file,fetching data and closing it, then again opening it,fetching it and closing and so on.....i am thinking of reading the data into an array and then unset the array if a different category or subcategory is selected....is this solution even possible?

[BlueSkyIS]

you'd be better off parsing the file one time and storing it in a database, then query the database each time.