title: PHPEXCEL get formatted date as is visible in excel file
body: <p>I am trying to import a excel file using PhpExcel lib
  for all other fields the <code>getValue()</code> function works but when it encounters a field with format date as set in ms-excel2013
  the date field in exel file is in format d-m-Y like <code>16-11-2014</code>
  but when I try to import it's value the <code>getValue()</code> returns <code>11-16-14</code> which when passed to <code>strtotime</code> further <code>returns false</code> in turn causing the <code>date('Y-m-d',strtotime($date))</code> to return <code>1970-01-01</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I searched whole of web and stackoverflow but none solution fixed my problem.
  In excel file i see the date as <code>16-11-2014</code> and want it to be imported as is.</p>
  
  <p>Here's the code<br/></p>
  
  <pre><code>protected function importExcel($filePath) {
      $excelData = array();
      if ($filePath) {
          $objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($filePath);
          $objPHPExcel-&gt;setReadDataOnly(true);
          foreach ($objPHPExcel-&gt;getWorksheetIterator() as $worksheet) {
              $worksheetTitle = $worksheet-&gt;getTitle();
              $highestRow = $worksheet-&gt;getHighestRow(); // e.g. 10
              $highestColumn = $worksheet-&gt;getHighestColumn(); // e.g 'F'
              $highestColumnIndex = PHPExcel_Cell::columnIndexFromString($highestColumn);
              $nrColumns = ord($highestColumn) - 64;
              $data = array();
              for ($row = 1; $row &lt;= $highestRow; ++$row) {
                  $values = array();
                  for ($col = 0; $col &lt; $highestColumnIndex; ++$col) {
                      $cell = $worksheet-&gt;getCellByColumnAndRow($col, $row);
                      if (PHPExcel_Shared_Date::isDateTime($cell))
                          throw new Exception("is date time"); // just a check
                      $val = $cell-&gt;getValue();
                      if (isset($val) &amp;&amp; $val)
                          $data[$row][$col] = $val;
                  }
              }
              $excelData[$worksheetTitle] = $data;
          }
          return $excelData;
      }
      return FALSE;
  }
  </code></pre>