Summing all values in PHP while loop

Question

Pretty newbie question :/

I have an API that returns values, I just want to get the number of elements in XML but its limited to 30 per query.

function SOMEfunction($number){
   $curl = curl_init("*URL*?format=xml&page=" . $number);
   $result = curl_exec($curl);
   $xml = simplexml_load_string($result);
   $ttn = $xml->count();
   echo "$ttn<br>";
}

so, Since I just want to get the number of elements in XML, i run a short while loop, which i want to sum somehow.

$sum=0;
$num=1;
while ($num < 7)
{
   $sum += SOMEfunction($num);
   $num++;
}
echo $sum;

the current out put is:

How can i sum them up?

Thanks.

Your function does not return value. echo "$ttn<br>"; should be return $ttn; Try making that change and combine it with the answer I posted and see if that works. — Maximus2012
– Maximus2012, Commented May 6, 2015 at 21:42
You are not making use of the argument that you are passing to your function. Even the syntax for passing the value seems to be incorrect. VALUE will be possibly treated as a constant by PHP. — Maximus2012
– Maximus2012, Commented May 6, 2015 at 21:43
Where is the value of $curl coming from? What does it look like. Maybe you should pass $curl as an argument to your function in place of VALUE. I am not sure if that will work even. — Maximus2012
– Maximus2012, Commented May 6, 2015 at 21:45
Your current code for the function will just echo the value but never assign them to $sum variable. Ideally you should not even be getting the output that you are currently getting. It should just be a single value. — Maximus2012
– Maximus2012, Commented May 6, 2015 at 21:59

SaidbakR · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-06 22:11:31Z

3

SOMEfunction should return a value, not print it, as follows:

function SOMEfunction($number){
   $curl = curl_init("*URL*?format=xml&page=" . $number);
   $result = curl_exec($curl);
   $xml = simplexml_load_string($result);
   $ttn = $xml->count();
   return $ttn;
}

edited May 6, 2015 at 22:11

answered May 6, 2015 at 22:05

SaidbakR

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Comments

Maximus2012 · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-06 21:39:58Z

0

Try this:

$sum=0;
$num = 1; 
do { 
 $sum += SOMEfunction($num);
 $num++;
} while ( $num > 0 && $num < 7 ); 

echo $sum;

This assumes that the rest of your code including SOMEfunction is working fine. You can also possibly re-factor the while loop but I am not entirely sure about that.

Another way to do this:

$sum=0;
$num=1;
while ($num < 7)
{
   $sum += SOMEfunction($num);
   $num++;
}
echo $sum;

Try this and see if it works. If not then I am not sure if your SOMEfunction is working correctly.

edited May 6, 2015 at 21:39

answered May 6, 2015 at 21:19

Maximus2012

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12 Comments

Niols Over a year ago

Yes, this do while loop looks like a for($num=1;$num<6;$num++). But I think it's a while loop, and the test should be wether SOMEfunction returned 0 or not.

Maximus2012 Over a year ago

But how will the sum be obtained in that case. You wanna add another answer with your approach ?

Darth2rk Over a year ago

Hi, thanks for the reply. SOMEfunction returns each count of XML elements...not 0 always. when i added the code maximus suggested and removed my echo, i now get the value 0. Is it possible my initial values were not numbers?

Maximus2012 Over a year ago

Try turning your do/while loop into a for loop as suggested by @Niols and see what you get ?

Maximus2012 Over a year ago

Take a look at the updated answer and see if that works.

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