Looping through XML with PHP simplexml_load_string()

Question

So I'm connecting to an api and it is returning XML.

$vehicles = array();

$xml = simplexml_load_string($result);
foreach($xml->Result as $item)
{
   $vehicle = array();

   foreach($item as $key => $value)
   {
        $vehicle[(string)$key] = (string)$value;
   }

   $vehicles[] = $vehicle;
}

print_r($vehicles);

If I var_dump($result) it displays (in the source code):

 string(52055) "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<DataTable xmlns="http://tempuri.org/">
  <xs:schema id="DataSet" 
targetNamespace="http://tempuri.org/DataSet.xsd" 
xmlns:mstns="http://tempuri.org/DataSet.xsd" 
xmlns="http://tempuri.org/DataSet.xsd" 
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
xmlns:msdata="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msdata" attributeFormDefault="qualified" elementFormDefault="qualified">
<xs:element name="DataSet" msdata:IsDataSet="true" msdata:MainDataTable="http_x003A__x002F__x002F_tempuri.org_x002F_DataSet.xsd_x003A_Result" msdata:UseCurrentLocale="true">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
      <xs:element name="Result">
        <xs:complexType>
          <xs:sequence>
            <xs:element name="newUsed" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="unitNumber" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="SN" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="Make" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="Model" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="mYear" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />
            <xs:element name="availability" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />

          </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>
    </xs:choice>
  </xs:complexType>
 </xs:element>
</xs:schema>
<diffgr:diffgram xmlns:msdata="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msdata" xmlns:diffgr="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-diffgram-v1">
<DataSet xmlns="http://tempuri.org/DataSet.xsd">
  <Result diffgr:id="Result1" msdata:rowOrder="0">
    <newUsed>Used</newUsed>
    <unitNumber>3621P</unitNumber>
    <SN>1M2AG11C94M013645</SN>
    <Make>Mack</Make>
    <Model>CV713</Model>
    <mYear>2004</mYear>
    <availability>In Stock</availability>
      </Result>
    </DataSet>
  </diffgr:diffgram>
</DataTable>"

My question is, why is this returning an empty array? What am I missing? NOTE: I've removed a lot of the xml for easier reading.

iainn · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-19 16:02:21Z

You're running into problems due to the namespaces in the XML document (the elements with : in them). You can't access child elements in different namespaces using the standard -> SimpleXML operator - you need to either loop over them using the children() method, or use Xpath to access them. I prefer the latter, although depending on the structure of your document that might not be possible.

$xml = simplexml_load_string($result);
$xml->registerXPathNamespace("DataSet", "http://tempuri.org/DataSet.xsd");

foreach($xml->xpath('//DataSet:Result') as $item) {
  $vehicle = array();

  foreach($item->children() as $value) {
    $vehicle[$value->getName()] = (string) $value;
  }

  $vehicles[] = $vehicle;
}

print_r($vehicles);

I've also made a change to how you were accessing the children of the <Result> elements - you can't use a foreach loop to access elements as key/value pairs. I've replaced this with a call to getName for the tag name, and cast to a string for the element's content.

See https://eval.in/864475 for a full example.

gmazzotti · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-19 15:44:29Z

1

$xml is the root element of the xml, so its DataTable. Between DataTable and Result there is a node in the hierarchy called DataSet.

So you code should be

foreach($xml->DataSet->Result as $item)
{
   ...
}

This is an example, you must test if $xml->DataSet exists before accessing his children.

answered Sep 19, 2017 at 15:44

gmazzotti

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1 Comment

salathe Over a year ago

There is also diffgr:diffgram between DataTable and DataSet in the element structure.

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