parsing xml with php

[axman505]

I have the following hunk of code:

		if ($dh = opendir($this->stylesPath)) {
			while (false !== ($file = readdir($dh))){
				if ($file !="." && $file != ".."){
					$this->styles[$i] = array();
					$this->styles[$i]['dirname'] = $file;
					
					// Import XML Here
					
					// Read in style.css
					$filename = $this->stylesPath."/".$this->styles[$i]['dirname']."/style.css";
					$fp = fopen($filename, "r");
					$contents = fread($fp, filesize($filename));
					fclose($fp);
					$this->styles[$i]['css'] = $contents;
					
					$i++;
				}
			}
       		closedir($dh);
		}

What I want to do in this loop, is read in and parse an xml file containing data at the noted position. The xml file will be formated similar to:

<info>
      <name>Myname</name>
      <author>MyAuthor</author>
</info>

I am able to parse the xml file out and print it to the screen, but I am having some difficulties trying to get these values assigned to variables. Can anyone offer any hints? Thanks!

 

[Maccaday]

What you want to look at is the DOM extension documentation on the php.net website (

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.dom.php).

This extension has a bunch of functions for creating, reading and manipulating XML documents, and it's included in the core installation of recent versions of PHP.

There's a host of functions for extracting elements, attributes and values, so just have a look at the list of functions to see what you need for the task.

Good luck!

 

[axman505]

Those are some great functions, however I am currently restricted to php 4, which will be troublesome. Are there any other solutions?

 

[predamarcel]

Hi,

on PHP 4.3.10 I'm ussing next functions:

function GetXMLTree ($xmldata)
{
    // we want to know if an error occurs
    ini_set ('track_errors', '1');

    $xmlreaderror = false;

    $parser = xml_parser_create ('ISO-8859-1');
    xml_parser_set_option ($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
    xml_parser_set_option ($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
    if (!xml_parse_into_struct ($parser, $xmldata, $vals, $index)) {
        $xmlreaderror = true;
        echo "error";
    }
    xml_parser_free ($parser);

    if (!$xmlreaderror) {
        $result = array ();
        $i = 0;
        if (isset ($vals [$i]['attributes']))
            foreach (array_keys ($vals [$i]['attributes']) as $attkey)
            $attributes [$attkey] = $vals [$i]['attributes'][$attkey];

        $result [$vals [$i]['tag']] = array_merge ($attributes, GetChildren ($vals, $i, 'open'));
    }

    ini_set ('track_errors', '0');
    return $result;
}

function GetChildren ($vals, &$i, $type)
{
    if ($type == 'complete') {
        if (isset ($vals [$i]['value']))
            return ($vals [$i]['value']);
        else
            return '';
    }

    $children = array (); // Contains node data

    /* Loop through children */
    while ($vals [++$i]['type'] != 'close') {
        $type = $vals [$i]['type'];
        // first check if we already have one and need to create an array
        if (isset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']])) {
            if (is_array ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']])) {
                $temp = array_keys ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]);
                // there is one of these things already and it is itself an array
                if (is_string ($temp [0])) {
                    $a = $children [$vals [$i]['tag']];
                    unset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]);
                    $children [$vals [$i]['tag']][0] = $a;
                }
            } else {
                $a = $children [$vals [$i]['tag']];
                unset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]);
                $children [$vals [$i]['tag']][0] = $a;
            }

            $children [$vals [$i]['tag']][] = GetChildren ($vals, $i, $type);
        } else
            $children [$vals [$i]['tag']] = GetChildren ($vals, $i, $type);
        // I don't think I need attributes but this is how I would do them:
        if (isset ($vals [$i]['attributes'])) {
            $attributes = array ();
            foreach (array_keys ($vals [$i]['attributes']) as $attkey)
            $attributes [$attkey] = $vals [$i]['attributes'][$attkey];
            // now check: do we already have an array or a value?
            if (isset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']])) {
                // case where there is an attribute but no value, a complete with an attribute in other words
                if ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']] == '') {
                    unset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]);
                    $children [$vals [$i]['tag']] = $attributes;
                }
                // case where there is an array of identical items with attributes
                elseif (is_array ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']])) {
                    $index = count ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]) - 1;
                    // probably also have to check here whether the individual item is also an array or not or what..
. all a bit messy
                    if ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']][$index] == '') {
                        unset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']][$index]);
                        $children [$vals [$i]['tag']][$index] = $attributes;
                    }
                    $children [$vals [$i]['tag']][$index] = array_merge ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']][$index], $attr
ibutes);
                } else {
                    $value = $children [$vals [$i]['tag']];
                    unset ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']]);
                    $children [$vals [$i]['tag']]['value'] = $value;
                    $children [$vals [$i]['tag']] = array_merge ($children [$vals [$i]['tag']], $attributes);
                }
            } else
                $children [$vals [$i]['tag']] = $attributes;
        }
    }

    return $children;
}

As a sample, read xml from a file (the `file' could be an URL which returns an XML as Content-Type):

$contents = file_get_contents($file);

$xml_tree = GetXMLTree ($contents);
echo '<PRE>';
print_r($xml_tree);
echo '</PRE>';

And you will have an associative array in $xml_tree.


Regards,
PM

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http://marcel.rdscv.ro/

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