Getting element names/values with XML/Xpath/PHP

Question

I have an XML schema that looks as follows:

<xml>
  <user id="1">
    <first_name>Bill</first_name>
    <last_name>Steve</last_name>
    <phone_numbers>
      <work>xxx-xxx-xxxx</work>
      <home>xxx-xxx-xxxx</home>
    </phone_numbers>
   </user>
   <user id="2">
      ........
   </user>
</xml>

Im working on parsing all of this information into PHP using DOM. Ex.

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
foreach($userInfo as $row)
{
       $first_name = $row->getElementsByTagName("first_name");
}

When I try to nest this to select the phone numbers however I get an error. I've tried using XPath to select the phone numbers with equal problems. I tried something along the lines of

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
foreach($userInfo as $row)
{
       $phoneInfo = $row->getElementsByTagName("phone_numbers");
       foreach($phoneInfo as $row2)
       {
            $work = $row2->getElementsByTagName("work");
       }
}

Im curious if Im doing something fundamentally wrong, or how to get this going. I've been tearing my hair out for a few hours now.

getElementsByTagName returns a DOMNodeList. Are you sure you can iterate through it using foreach? (Just asking) — Jonas Schmid
– Jonas Schmid, Commented Jan 24, 2011 at 21:19

Mathias E. · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-24 21:30:44Z

3

You can't get the value directly from a DOMNodeList Object, try this :

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
foreach($userInfo as $row)
{
       $phoneInfo = $row->getElementsByTagName("phone_numbers");
       foreach($phoneInfo as $row2)
       {
            // get the value from the first child
            $work = $row2->getElementsByTagName("work")->item(0)->nodeValue;
            $home = $row2->getElementsByTagName("home")->item(0)->nodeValue;
       }
}

answered Jan 24, 2011 at 21:30

Mathias E.

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1 Comment

DaOgre Over a year ago

I want to kiss you on the mouth right now. That worked like a charm. I love/hate it when it's so easy.

ircmaxell · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-24 21:25:59Z

1

Well, you could switch it to SimpleXml which makes this type of parsing easier:

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
foreach ($userInfo as $user) {
    $node = simplexml_import_dom($user);
    $id = (string) $node['id'];
    $first = (string) $node->first_name;
    $last = (string) $node->last_name;
    $workPhone = (string) $node->phone_numbers->work;
    $homePhone = (string) $node->phone_numbers->home;
}

Now, in DomDocument, you could do this by using DomXpath:

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
$xpath = new DomXpath($doc);
foreach ($userInfo as $user) {
    $id = $user->getAttribute('id');
    $first = $xpath->query('//first_name', $user)->item(0)->textContent;
    $last = $xpath->query('//last_name', $user)->item(0)->textContent;
    $work = $xpath->query('//phone_numbers/work', $user)->item(0)->textContent;
    $home = $xpath->query('//phone_numbers/home', $user)->item(0)->textContent;
}

Note that the above code (both parts) require that the format is exactly that. If you have conditionals, you might want to change it to something like this (the firstname conditional only):

$userInfo = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "user" ); 
$xpath = new DomXpath($doc);
foreach ($userInfo as $user) {
    $id = $user->getAttribute('id');
    $firstQuery = $xpath->query('//first_name', $user);
    if ($firstQuery->length > 0) {
        $first = $firstQuery->item(0)->textContent;
    } else {
        $first = '';
    }
}

edited Jan 24, 2011 at 21:25

answered Jan 24, 2011 at 21:19

ircmaxell

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1 Comment

DaOgre Over a year ago

I was trying to use DomXpath as you mentioned here, but the problem I was having was differentiating which user was associated with the phone number. It looks like using xpath onside the object returned from $userInfo would work, I hadn't thought of that. The other answer more closely hits what I need, but this looks really solid. Thanks for taking the time out to help and when I dig into xpath again Im sure I'll use this.

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