I have a file with data in the following format:
<user>
<fname>Anthony</fname>
<lname>Smith</lname>
<accid>3874918</accid>
</user>
<user>
...
</user>
I'm trying to parse this data and store it to MySQL database with the follwing fields: fname, lname, accid.
Now the problem is how to determine <user> and </user> so I can parse the data inside of it? Thank you.
If it's valid XML, use SimpleXML. First you will need to ensure that you have a single root element, for example <users>:
<?php
$str = "<users>
<user>...</user>
<user>...</user>
</users>";
$xml = simplexml_load_string($str>;
foreach ($xml as $user) {
// Make a query using $user->fname, $user->lname, $user->accid
}
You should to this using a dom parser(or xml parser, depending on your data). It would look something like this (warning: untested code):
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadXML($xmlString);
$list = $dom->getElementsByTagName('user');
for ($i = 0; $i < $list->length; $i++) {
$userNode = $list->item($i);
$node = $userNode->firstChild();
while ($node !== NULL) {
switch ($node->$nodeName) {
case 'fname':
// ...
}
$node = $node->nextSibling();
}
}
Assuming you're using php5 (you should be) you could create a simpleXML object and use it and PDO to do it, with very little code. Using mysql_ functions and parsing the XML by hand would take a lot more code.
Here is an example:
$names = simplexml_load_file('names.xml');
foreach ($names->user as $user) {
$pdo->exec("INSERT INTO names (fname, lname, accid)" . " VALUES ('" . $user->fname . " ', '" . $user->lname . "','" . $user->accid . "')")
or die("failed insert");
}
This isn't tested code, but it gives you a good idea of how it works. For a production app I would want to put some more error checking and validation in it, but this should get you started.
If you are using PHP5.x, SimpleXML will help you.
<?php
$sample = <<<END
<foo>
<user>
<fname>Anthony</fname>
<lname>Smith</lname>
<accid>3874918</accid>
</user>
<user>
<fname>foo</fname>
<lname>bar</lname>
<accid>123</accid>
</user>
</foo>
END;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($sample);
var_dump($xml);
