Excel to PHP array, possible and how?

This works for me:

$content = file_get_contents($your_file_path); 
$lines = array_map("rtrim", explode("\n", $content));

I recommended to use PHPEXCEL library

https://github.com/PHPOffice/PHPExcel

you can see an example

Update: Now the alternative to this library is phpspreadsheet

May be my answer is too simple (for one time work only), but I use the CONCATENATE "Function" in excell. The last cell on each row will have concatenation function, like this:

=CONCATENATE("['";A2;"'=>['data1' => '";B2;"', 'data2' => '";C2;"'],")

where:

column "A" is ID of something;
column "B" is first characteristic;
column "C" is second characteristic;
etc.

Then just copy and paste function results to Your script or config file, and do not forget the first and the last bracket.

Save the spreadsheet as a CSV, then use PHP's built-in CSV functions. See the sample code here:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.fgetcsv.php