Parsing XML using XMLReader + SimpleXML in PHP

Question

Recently I got from here about how to parse large xml files using of XMLReader and SimpleXML in PHP. I tried to adapt the code of above mentioned tutorial into my php procedure like this:

$xml_url = "http://localhost/rest/server.php?wstoken=".$token&function=contents";
    $reader = new XMLReader;
    $reader->open($xml_url);

    while($reader->read()){
        if($reader->nodeType == XMLReader::ELEMENT && $reader->name == 'SINGLE'){
            $doc = new DOMDocument('1.0','UTF-8');
            $xml = simplexml_import_dom($doc->importNode($reader->expand(), true));
            //$titleString = (string) $xml->description;
            echo $xml->description;
        }
    }

The XML file called via url is so (the xml version is here): screenshot

Other SINGLE tags (marked with 'red') have the same structure and I want to print 'description' of them also.

The output is with above mentioned php procedure is: error on line 1 at column 1: Extra content at the end of the document. Any help would be great.

Can't you simply use simplexml_load_file and xpath?

Passerby
– Passerby

2013-01-23 03:35:11 +00:00
Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 3:35 — Passerby
– Passerby, Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 3:35

Passerby · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-24 03:31:52Z

1

SimpleXML function should be enough:

$xml=simplexml_load_file('http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72519118/response.xml');
var_dump($xml->xpath('//SINGLE/KEY[@name="description"]/VALUE/text()'));

The above var_dump outputs:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#2 (1) {
    [0]=>
    string(1703) "<div class="no-overflow">..."
  }
  [1]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#3 (1) {
    [0]=>
    string(9906) "<div class="no-overflow">..."
  }
  [2]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#4 (1) {
    [0]=>
    string(4114) "<div class="no-overflow">..."
  }
}

Note that tag names in xpath() is case sensitive, so '//single/key...' doesn't work.

Addition:

The "standard" way to retrieve text value in SimpleXML is $KEY->VALUE;

However if you have reached the "end" node of the XML tree (like I do in my XPath), you can simply type-cast it to string to get the value:

$xml=simplexml_load_file('http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72519118/response.xml');
$result=$xml->xpath('//SINGLE/KEY[@name="description"]/VALUE/text()');
foreach($result as $text)
{
    var_dump((string)$text);
}

The above outputs:

string(1703) "<div class="no-overflow"><p>..."
string(9906) "<div class="no-overflow"><h3>..."
string(4114) "<div class="no-overflow"><h3>..."

edited Jan 24, 2013 at 3:31

answered Jan 23, 2013 at 3:48

Passerby

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3 Comments

bofanda Over a year ago

thank you for your reply, i used it, but the result is now : error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty

Passerby Over a year ago

@Dozent I tried this code again and still get the same result. Are you sure your server.php generates the same valid XML as you post on DropBox?

bofanda Over a year ago

yes now it's works, i was mistakenly put Content-type: application/xml rather than text/html. The result is now: array(15) { [0]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#2 (0) { } [1]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#3 (0) { } [2]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#4 (0) { ... to be honest I don't know how to extract values from this set of arrays. Can you show me the approach? Thanks

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