Accessing namespace colon nodes in XML with SimpleXML PHP

Question

This is similar to a question I've posted, but I've broadened out as this has got to be solvable.

I am trying to access rating and viewCount from this rss feed. Now, these are namespaced with yt: and gd: - however the namespace references are 404's from youtube's feed so it seems to be failing. Any help please, please?

I am trying to use:-

$ytFeed->children('http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007')->statistics->attributes('viewCount'));

But it fails... It does work like that normally, for instance I CAN access media: with

$ytFeed->children('http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/')->group->category);

This is the original RSS, look at the bottom for these nodes:-

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:yt='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007'>
    <id>http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/tDJFDsZFw2E</id>
    <published>2009-03-02T07:02:49.000Z</published>
    <updated>2011-07-19T06:57:29.000Z</updated>
    <category scheme='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#kind' term='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007#video' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat' term='Music' label='Music' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='Other Lives' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='Jesse Tabish' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='Jenny Hsu' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='Jupiter Hotel' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='Portland' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='music' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='band' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='interview' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='mf magazine' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='fashion' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='hotel room' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='doug fir lounge' />
    <category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='erik schultz' />
    <title type='text'>Other Lives</title>
    <content type='text'>We sat down with Jesse Tabish and Jenny Hsu from Other Lives at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, OR. We love these guys. Check them out at myspace.com/otherlivesVisit mf magazine at musicfashionmagazine.com or myspace.com/musicfashion</content>
    <link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDJFDsZFw2E&amp;feature=youtube_gdata' />
    <link rel='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007#video.responses' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/tDJFDsZFw2E/responses' />
    <link rel='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007#video.related' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/tDJFDsZFw2E/related' />
    <link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/tDJFDsZFw2E' />
    <author>
        <name>mfmagazine</name>
        <uri>http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/mfmagazine</uri>
        </author>
    <gd:comments>
        <gd:feedLink href='http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/tDJFDsZFw2E/comments' countHint='16' />
        </gd:comments>
    <media:group>
        <media:category label='Music' scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat'>Music</media:category>
        <media:content url='http://www.youtube.com/v/tDJFDsZFw2E?f=videos&amp;app=youtube_gdata' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' medium='video' isDefault='true' expression='full' duration='600' yt:format='5' />
        <media:content url='rtsp://v3.cache3.c.youtube.com/CiILENy73wIaGQlhw0XGDkUytBMYDSANFEgGUgZ2aWRlb3MM/0/0/0/video.3gp' type='video/3gpp' medium='video' expression='full' duration='600' yt:format='1' />
        <media:content url='rtsp://v6.cache3.c.youtube.com/CiILENy73wIaGQlhw0XGDkUytBMYESARFEgGUgZ2aWRlb3MM/0/0/0/video.3gp' type='video/3gpp' medium='video' expression='full' duration='600' yt:format='6' />
        <media:description type='plain'>We sat down with Jesse Tabish and Jenny Hsu from Other Lives at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, OR. We love these guys. Check them out at myspace.com/otherlivesVisit mf magazine at musicfashionmagazine.com or myspace.com/musicfashion</media:description>
        <media:keywords>Other Lives, Jesse Tabish, Jenny Hsu, Jupiter Hotel, Portland, music, band, interview, mf magazine, fashion, hotel room, doug fir lounge, erik schultz</media:keywords>
        <media:player url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDJFDsZFw2E&amp;feature=youtube_gdata_player' />
        <media:thumbnail url='http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tDJFDsZFw2E/0.jpg' height='240' width='320' time='00:05:00' />
        <media:thumbnail url='http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tDJFDsZFw2E/1.jpg' height='90' width='120' time='00:02:30' />
        <media:thumbnail url='http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tDJFDsZFw2E/2.jpg' height='90' width='120' time='00:05:00' />
        <media:thumbnail url='http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tDJFDsZFw2E/3.jpg' height='90' width='120' time='00:07:30' />
        <media:title type='plain'>Other Lives</media:title>
        <yt:duration seconds='600' />
        </media:group>
    <gd:rating average='5.0' max='5' min='1' numRaters='17' rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#overall' />
    <yt:statistics favoriteCount='10' viewCount='3572' />
    </entry>

possible duplicate of 404 on YouTube XML Schemas - For the love of — Quentin
– Quentin, Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 11:28
I broadened out and have put it for deletion. I said as such at the start. — waxical
– waxical, Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 11:38
In case anyone comes across this, an important point not covered by any of the answers: the URI of a namespace does not need to be retrievable in any way. It is not a reference to an XSD or other definition, just an arbitrary identifier which uses the ownership of domains to ensure there aren't any duplicates. — IMSoP
– IMSoP, Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 0:07

Gordon · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 11:36:22Z

5

Simple pass the namespace argument when calling children function

$nodes = $xml->children('gd', true);

See the manual: http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.children.php

edited Jul 28, 2011 at 11:36

Gordon

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answered Jul 28, 2011 at 11:32

hamczu

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3 Comments

waxical Over a year ago

Simple. However, doesn't work with data above from my attempt. I have RTFM but this has been a consistent issue and not resolved. - I get "SimpleXMLElement::children() expects at most 1 parameter, 2 given"

Gordon Over a year ago

@WiseDonkey as you can see on the manual page, is_prefix was only added with PHP 5.2 so it means your PHP version is older than that. You are strongly encouraged to updated whatever version of PHP you are using because any version < 5.3 is no longer supported.

waxical Over a year ago

Right, thanks for pointer - not really possible to update atm. Is there no other way?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 20:38:18Z

5

Okay, first problem is that you are misusing the attributes method:

$simpleXML->statistics->attributes('viewCount'));

in the above (paraphrased from your example) you pass in the name of the attribute you want, which is not the parameter that attributes accepts. The above, instead, would return all attributes of the statistics element where the attribute itself had a namespace of viewCount, because the method expects the first parameter, if one is set, to be the attribute's namespace.

Your code would work if you instead accessed the attributes as an array of the element, like so:

$ytFeed->children('http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007')->statistics['viewCount'];

If you want to avoid using the full namespace uri and the children method every time, you could simplify by using the getNamespaces method to map all namespaces to one array and then mapping the children with that namespace to one object via the children method, like:

$namespaces = $ytFeed->getNameSpaces(true);
$yt = $ytFeed->children($namespaces['yt']);
$yt->statistics['viewCount'];

// Access all media: namespaced group elements like in your "working" example:
$media = $ytFeed->children($namespaces['media']);
$media->group->category;

I realize this is over 2 years old and an answer was accepted, but the accepted answer is really just an alternative that is better documented and more intuitive, but does not tell others who find this question the actual way to achieve this with SimpleXML, which in the end requires only an extra two lines of code to the DOMDocument's 6-8 extra lines and a different extension, which may mislead future readers into thinking it can't be done with SimpleXML. It can, and it's easy, just not very obvious.

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 20:38

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 23, 2013 at 7:18

Anthony

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1 Comment

IMSoP Over a year ago

The getNamespaces trick is no longer necessary unless you're on a really ancient version of PHP, as children() and attributes() can both now be given the prefix directly by giving a second parameter of true. Relying on the prefix (either way) does mean a change in the prefixes used (which doesn't change the "meaning" of the breaks your code, though. Better to just build an array with your own names for the namespaces you know you're going to use (it's the URI part like 'http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007' which is guaranteed not to change).

Yoshi · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 11:44:47Z

2

Using DomDocument and DomXpath:

error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_STRICT);
ini_set('display_errors', 'on');

$dom = new DomDocument;
$dom->load('data.xml');

$xpath = new DomXpath($dom);
$xpath->registerNamespace('atom', 'http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom');
$xpath->registerNamespace('media', 'http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/');
$xpath->registerNamespace('gd', 'http://schemas.google.com/g/2005');
$xpath->registerNamespace('yt', 'http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007');

$favoriteCountAttr = $xpath->query('/atom:entry/yt:statistics/@favoriteCount')->item(0);
if ($favoriteCountAttr instanceof DomAttr) {
    echo $favoriteCountAttr->nodeValue; // output: 10
}

answered Jul 28, 2011 at 11:44

Yoshi

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1 Comment

waxical Over a year ago

This is a bit of a pain in the arse, but it does work so has been adopted. Thanks!

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