PHP Parse XML with colon in tag name using children

Question

I have the following php code:

$xml=simplexml_load_file("http://openclipart.org/api/search/?query=dog&page=1");
echo "<ul>";
foreach ($xml->channel->item as $clipinfo):
  $title=$clipinfo->title;
  $full=$clipinfo->enclosure['url'];
  $thumb=$clipartinfo->children('media', true)->thumbnail['url'];

  echo "<div style=\"width:160px;height:120px;float:left;margin:5px;margin-top:10px;\">    
  <a href=\"{$full}\" target='_blank' class=\"thumbnail\">
  <img alt=\"{$title}\" style=\"width: 160px; height: 120px;\" src=\"{$thumb}\">
  </a>
  </div>";
endforeach;

This is being fed by the following XML file:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <channel>
    <title>OpenClipart.org</title>
    <atom:link rel="self" href="http://openclipart.org/api/search/?query=dog&amp;page=1" type="application/rss+xml"/>
    <link>http://openclipart.org</link>
    <description>Download, Sample, Cut-up, Share.</description>
    <language>en-US</language>
    <image>
    <url>http://openclipart.org/assets/images/images/logo-no-text.jpg</url>
    <link>http://openclipart.org</link>
    <title>OpenClipart.org</title>
    <height>93</height>
    <width>114</width>
    </image>
    <item>
      <title>walking dog</title>
      <link>http://openclipart.org/detail/720/walking-dog-by-johnny_automatic</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:23:37 -0400</pubDate>
      <dc:creator>johnny_automatic</dc:creator>
      <description>cartoon of a girl walking a dog from  http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/KidsPyra/National Agricultural Library, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture</description>
      <enclosure url="http://openclipart.org/people/johnny_automatic/johnny_automatic_walking_dog.svg" type="image/svg+xml" length="99841"/>
      <guid>http://openclipart.org/detail/720/walking-dog-by-johnny_automatic</guid>
      <cc:license>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain</cc:license>
      <media:thumbnail url="http://openclipart.org/image/90px/svg_to_png/720/johnny_automatic_walking_dog.png"/>
    </item>

Why can't I get the <media:thumbnail> url attribute with my foreach statement? (I have already read PHP library for parsing XML with a colons in tag names?) This is a different issue.

Amal · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-14 00:33:18Z

12

First of all, you're using an undefined variable in your foreach loop. You've defined $clipinfo but you're trying to use $clipartinfo in your code.

Second, you're accessing the attributes incorrectly:

<media:thumbnail url="http://openclipart.org/image/foo.png"/>

You're trying to access the URL attribute. This needs to be done with attributes() method.

Change:

$thumb=$clipartinfo->children('media', true)->thumbnail['url'];

to:

$thumb = $clipinfo->children('media', true)->thumbnail->attributes()->url;

Hope this helps!

edited Sep 14, 2013 at 0:33

answered Sep 14, 2013 at 0:17

Amal

76.8k18 gold badges133 silver badges154 bronze badges

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

3 Comments

Kody Over a year ago

That fixed the problem where the entire foreach statement wasn't working. However, the variable $thumb still returns null.

Kody Over a year ago

Beautiful! Thank you so much! You were the first and only person to not rudely send me to that other answer!

IMSoP Over a year ago

To be clear, in general, ['url'] would be the right way to access an attribute; the problem comes when namespaces are involved. (The other answer pointed to was explaining that "colon in tag name" is actually an "XML namespace"; once you are using the right terms, help will be easier to find.)

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:17:28Z

Attributes are not automatically in the same namespace as the element they appear on. If the XML contained <media:thumbnail media:url="...." />, then the attribute would be in the namespace currently assigned the prefix media, the same namespace as the thumbnail element, and your code would work fine.

However, a quirk of the XML namespace specification is that "The namespace name for an unprefixed attribute name always has no value." - that is, an attribute without a namespace prefix is explicitly not in any namespace, regardless of what else is defined in the document. (See also XML Namespaces and Unprefixed Attributes)

In SimpleXML, this means if you've switched to a specific namespace with ->children, you have to explicitly switch back to the "null" namespace to access the attribute, using the ->attributes() method. This should work:

 $thumb = $clipinfo->children('media', true)->thumbnail->attributes(null)->url;

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP Parse XML with colon in tag name using children

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related