remove empty Arrays from multidimensional Array generated with simplexml

Question

I have an xml file with the following structure:

<categories>
  <category>
    <id>3</id>
    <title><![CDATA[Testname]]></title>
    <text><![CDATA[]]></text>
    <keywords><![CDATA[]]></keywords>
    <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
  </category>
</categories>

Now I'm loading this file and creating an array of it:

$xmlData = simplexml_load_file( 'categories.xml', null, LIBXML_NOCDATA);
$array = json_decode(json_encode($xmlData), true);

That generates me the following Result (print_r Output):

Array
(
  [@attributes] => Array
    (
      [version] => 1.0
    )

  [categories] => Array
    (
      [category] => Array
        (
          [0] => Array
            (
              [id] => 3
              [title] => Testname
              [text] => Array
                (
                )

              [keywords] => Array
                (
                )

              [description] => Array
                (
                )
            )
        )
    )
)

Here is my question, how could I remove those empty arrays? I tried it with array Filter, but this didn't work. (I need the keys, but they should be empty)

I know there would be a way, in my next step where I'm renaming the array keys as needed, i could check for empty arrays in the foreach loop, but I think there is an easier way, because every field (except id) could be empty in the xml file.

foreach($array['categories']['category'] as $key => $category){
  $results[$key]['id'] = $category['id'];
  $results[$key]['headline'] = $category['title'];
  $results[$key]['content'] = $category['text'];
  $results[$key]['metaKeywords'] = $category['keywords'];
  $results[$key]['metaDescription'] = $category['description'];
}

Does someone has an idea, what i could do after the json_decode? Or is there an easier way for all I'm trying to accomplish here?

Thanks!

So you first iterate over categories to remove empty values, and then again iterate over categories to create $results. Why do you need to do it tiwce? — u_mulder
– u_mulder, Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 8:41

IMSoP · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-31 09:07:48Z

2

Every time I see someone use that json_decode(json_encode()) hack, it makes me sad. You don't need to turn the SimpleXML object into an array to loop over it, just read the usage examples in the manual.

If you loop over the SimpleXML object directly, you will never get those arrays, so will never need to remove them:

$xmlData = simplexml_load_file('categories.xml'); // LIBXML_NOCDATA is NOT needed
foreach($xmlData->categories->category as $key => $category){
  $results[$key]['id'] = (string)$category->id;
  $results[$key]['headline'] = (string)$category->title;
  $results[$key]['content'] = (string)$category->text;
  $results[$key]['metaKeywords'] = (string)$category->keywords;
  $results[$key]['metaDescription'] = (string)$category->description;
}

The (string) tells SimpleXML you want the text content of a particular element (including CDATA), and will give you an empty string for the empty elements.

answered Mar 31, 2017 at 9:07

IMSoP

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1 Comment

emjay Over a year ago

I've tried it like you suggested, but I'm not getting a full array. Please take a look here: stackoverflow.com/questions/43229159/…

Sahil Gulati · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-30 08:43:42Z

Hope this will work. PHP code demo

<?php
$result=Array
(

  "categories" => Array
    (
      "category" => Array
        (
          0 => Array
            (
              "id" => 3,
              "title" => "Testname",
              "text" => Array
                (
                ),

              "keywords" => Array
                (
                ),

              "description" => Array
                (
                )
            )
        )
    )
);
$results=array();
foreach($result['categories']['category'] as $key => $category){
  $results[$key]['id'] = $category['id'];
  $results[$key]['headline'] = $category['title'];
  $results[$key]['content'] = is_array($category['text']) && count($category['text'])>0 ? $category['text'] : false;
  $results[$key]['metaKeywords'] = is_array($category['keywords']) && count($category['keywords'])>0 ? $category['keywords'] : false;
  $results[$key]['metaDescription'] = is_array($category['description']) && count($category['description'])>0 ? $category['description'] : false;
  $results[$key]=array_filter($results[$key]);
}
print_r($results);

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