newb help reading in config file

[Xaqte]

I'm trying to read in a config file, formatted like:

<MESSAGE>
Tank number five exploded.
</MESSAGE>
<MESSAGE>
Tank #7 in need of repair
</MESSAGE>

I've been able to get the file contents by:

$comments = file_get_contents("data.txt");

And I've tried a number of "preg_match_all" statements, but I really suck at regular expressions.

My question is:
How can I find out the number of "MESSAGE" blocks in the file, and how would I go about looping through them and printing their contents?

I have searched this forum, and have come up short.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/suggestions!

X

 

[LazyJones]

If your config file is well-formed XML, I suggest simpleXML (requires PHP5)

 

[pejvak]

for newbie in PHP i found this site very very helpful

http://phpnotepad.com

he recorded 6 lessons so far, he is very good at it teaching and explaing php.

 

[Xaqte]

Ok, I've found two scripts that work (sort of):

http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.xml.xml-parser.php

http://forums.devshed.com/php-development-5/simple-xml-parse-238135.html?p=1031034#post1031034

The only problem is that each of them only return the first node. I think this is because all of the nodes I'm parsing are the same (MESSAGE).

So, if anyone could help me.... I would really appreciate it!

Thanks again,

X