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I have an xml document that has nodes mixed in with text. I want to parse this node as bold text in-line with the existing text. I have searched and researched the web for answers but fail to find the way to do this. My xml file looks like this:

<song>
  <lyrics>
    <verse name="v1">
      <lines>
        On a <chord name="A"/>hill far away stood an <chord name="D"/>old rugged cross, The <chord name="E7"/>emblem of suff'ring and <chord name="A"/>shame;<br/>
        And I <chord name="A"/>love that old cross where the <chord name="D"/>dearest and best, For a <chord name="E7"/>world of lost sinners was <chord name="A"/>slain.
      </lines>
    </verse>
  </lyrics>
</song>

To parse the text of the verse I have done:

$xml = @simplexml_load_file($file) or die("Can't read XML-SONG file...");
$myVerse= $xml->lyrics->verse[0]->lines;
echo $myVerse;

which prints:

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, The emblem of suff'ring and shame; And I love that old cross where the dearest and best, For a world of lost sinners was slain.

But how do I parse those <chord name="D"/ > as (bold) text in between the text?..

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  • Can you please provide an example of what the output actually should look like? Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 15:31
  • It would be nice if i could do: On a (A) hill far away stood an (D) old rugged cross Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 16:30

3 Answers 3

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the simplexml_load_file was not passing your chord tags at all. I made that assumption in my first post. The actual XML produced from the load was

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [lyrics] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [verse] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [name] => v1
                        )

                    [lines] => 
        On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, The emblem of suff'ring and shame;
        And I love that old cross where the dearest and best, For a world of lost sinners was slain
                )
        )
)

So I switched to use DOM instead and was still getting the chord tags stripped out since they are invalid. I found some help in this thread PHP DOM get nodevalue html? (without stripping tags)

I ended with this. Which does what you want.

<?php

function get_inner_html( $node ) { 
    $innerHTML= ''; 
    $children = $node->childNodes; 
    foreach ($children as $child) { 
        $innerHTML .= $child->ownerDocument->saveXML( $child ); 
    } 

    return $innerHTML;  
} 

$file='myxmlfile.xml';
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->load($file);
$lines=$doc->getElementsByTagName('lines');
$linesarray=array();
foreach ($lines as $node) {
  $linesarray[]=get_inner_html($node);
}

foreach($linesarray as $myVerse){
    $regex='/(<chord name="(.{1,2})"\/>)/';
    $replacement = '<B>$2</B> ';
    $myVerse= preg_replace($regex,$replacement,$myVerse);
    echo $myVerse;
}

?>

Which gives a result of

On a A hill far away stood an D old rugged cross, The E7 emblem of suff'ring and A shame;
And I A love that old cross where the D dearest and best, For a E7 world of lost sinners was A slain.

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1 Comment

your method works and therefor I will grant you the benefit of the correct answer, however, I will end up using my ->asXML() answer as it requires less code. I believe yours is technically the right way though ;-)
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$xml = @simplexml_load_file($file) or die("Can't read XML-SONG file...");
$myVerse= $xml->lyrics->verse[0]->lines;

$regex='/(<chord name="(.{1,2})"\/>)/';
$replacement = '<B>$2</B> ';
$myVerse= preg_replace($regex,$replacement,$myVerse);
echo $myVerse;

This will output

On a A hill far away stood an D old rugged cross, The E7 emblem of suff'ring and A shame;

You can modify the replacement string to suit your needs for displaying the chords.

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3 Comments

I tried replacing but this doesn't seem to work because when you 'print_r' the $myVerse, it only shows the array details, yet when i echo $myVerse, it just prints the plain verse text without the <chord> nodes
Edited my answer to include your beginning lines. This will output it with the BOLDED chord letters in placed of <chord name="E7"/> .
I've tried it but it doesn't work. I don't know why but when I echo $myVerse it doesn't show the <chord> nodes at all, however when I print_r($myVerse) it shows me a complicated array like this: SimpleXMLElement Object ( [chord] => Array ( [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [@attributes] => Array ( [name] => A ) ) [1] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [@attributes] => Array ( [name] => D ) ) [2] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [@attributes] => Array ( [name] => E7 ) ) [3] => Sim...
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Okay, the issue why the chord node was not showing up when printed as echo $myVerse (even in the page source where the node should be able to show up) is because I forgot to output my $myVerse asXML(). Therefore the variable should be changed like this:

$xml = @simplexml_load_file($file) or die("Can't read XML-SONG file...");
$myVerse= $xml->lyrics->verse[0]->lines;->asXML();

When we print this in the page, then we can see the node in the page-source

echo $myVerse;

Only then can we replace the node the way @greg_diesel suggested like:

$regex='/(<chord name="(.{1,2})"\/>)/';
$replacement = '<B>$2</B> ';
$myVerse= preg_replace($regex,$replacement,$myVerse);
echo $myVerse;

Thanks @greg_diesel but the answer was in the ->asXML() The research has helped me to learn xml a bit better, let me hope this helps someone else as well!

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