Parsing XML from URL using SimpleXML

Question

I'm trying to echo the XML content at this URL but I'm having difficulty. Here's what I have so far:

$url = "GetVideosServlet?queryId=1";

$xml = simplexml_load_file($url);

$value = (string) $xml->results->item[0]->id;

echo $value;

I keep getting the error that I'm trying to get the property of a non-object. But I was under the impression simplexml_load_file converts my XML string INTO an object??

If anyone could show me how to echo out any of the content, I'd be very grateful.

That means $xml didn't get turned into an object. If it's false, it didn't work. — Jared Farrish
– Jared Farrish, Commented Jul 2, 2012 at 11:13

Lake · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-02 11:15:47Z

4

I think you just miss a tag which is query, try:

$value = (string) $xml->query->results->item[0]->id;
echo $value;

answered Jul 2, 2012 at 11:15

Lake

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shxfee · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-02 11:27:51Z

2

When you are debugging print_r and var_dump are very handy! for example in this case if you dumped the $xml right after loading it you would have noticed that you missed out the SimpleXMLElement Object query.

$url = "http://176.34.224.80/REMPADRecSys/GetVideosServlet?queryId=1";
$xml = simplexml_load_file($url);
echo "<pre>";
print_r($xml);

Would give you the output:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [query] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [@attributes] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                )

            [results] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [item] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                                (
                                    [id] => GZ7w39jpqwo
                                    [rank] => 1
                                    [explanation] => Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla a massa lectus, sed convallis sapien. Curabitur sem mauris, ullamcorper ut. 
                                )

and so the correct reference would have been $xml->query->results->item[0]->id; like @Lake mentioned. Happy debugging.

answered Jul 2, 2012 at 11:27

shxfee

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2 Comments

aadu Over a year ago

Whoa...did you do that by echoing <pre> first? ...how does this work!?

shxfee Over a year ago

yeh. It is really helpful. Check out w3 schools <pre> tag basically just preserves the line breaks and spaces.

Piotr Olaszewski · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-02 11:16:39Z

0

simplexml_load_file(rawurlencode('http://176.34.224.80/REMPADRecSys/GetVideosServlet?queryId=1'));

try this.

answered Jul 2, 2012 at 11:16

Piotr Olaszewski

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