PHP Search for Text/Data in Variable containing XML Data

Question

I have XML data inside a variable.

I now need to search for a specific text inside this variable.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've been googling this but no good results :o/

The XML data looks like this:

<status>
<connection_status>successful</connection_status>
<operation_status>successful</operation_status>
<Options>
<data_2>
<data_7422731>
<id>7431</id>
<assetId>2</assetId>
<startDate>2013-03-05 11:00:00</startDate>
<endDate>2013-03-05 12:00:00</endDate>
</data_7422731>
</data_2>
</Options>
</status>

I need to search for a specified ID.

For example the id "7431"

Are you looking for a specific element? Or rather specific text-content? — Daniel
– Daniel, Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 11:58
Can you show the code (structure of the XML file, what you are looking for and what you have tried)? — Tjoene
– Tjoene, Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 11:59

str · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 12:12:25Z

2

Use an XML parser to load the string to XML, then get its children or use XPATH like:

/status/Options/data_2//id

edited Mar 5, 2013 at 12:12

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 12:00

str

45.5k18 gold badges117 silver badges134 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Boon McBoon · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-05 14:00:30Z

1

Well this isn't quite XML related, but like others said, unless you provide more detail and code, there's not much help we can do.

This is a quick dirty fix in case you don't want to be bothered setting up an XML parser:

Edit: I updated the code to fix some tiny mistakes, and I turned it into a function so you can call it into any tag.

function findID($mystring,$tag)
{
    $begintag="<$tag>";
    $endtag = "</$tag>";
    $beginpos = strpos($mystring, $begintag);
    $endpos = strpos($mystring,$endtag );

    $length = $endpos - ($beginpos + strlen($beginpos) +1);

    $extractedvariable = substr($mystring, $beginpos + strlen($beginpos) +1, $length); 

    return $extractedvariable;
}

Usage example:

$data='<status>
            <connection_status>successful</connection_status>
            <operation_status>successful</operation_status>
            <Options>
            <data_2>
            <data_7422731>
            <id>7431</id>
            <assetId>2</assetId>
            <startDate>2013-03-05 11:00:00</startDate>
            <endDate>2013-03-05 12:00:00</endDate>
            </data_7422731>
            </data_2>
            </Options>
            </status>';

echo findID($data,'id');

I still recommend using an XML parser if you are going to use most of the tags in the variables or if you have multilevel XML.

edited Mar 5, 2013 at 14:00

answered Mar 5, 2013 at 12:10

Boon McBoon

264 bronze badges

1 Comment

Satch3000 Over a year ago

It return blank ... what I want to do is tell it: "find text '7431' in $data variable"

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP Search for Text/Data in Variable containing XML Data

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related