Reading XML data in PHP, simple

Question

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mainXML>
    <items>
        <item category="Dekorationer" name="Flot væg" description="Meget flot væg. Passer alle stuer." price="149" />
        <item category="Fritid" name="Fodbold" description="Meget rund bold. Rørt af messi." price="600" />
    </items>
</mainXML>

How can i read this?

So i can make like a php loop that outputs the category, name and description for example?

I tried and started out with this:

    $doc = new DOMDocument();
    $doc->load( 'ex.xml' );

    $items = $doc->getElementsByTagName( "item" );
    foreach( $items as $item )
    {
        $categorys = $item->getElementsByTagName( "category" );
        $category = $categorys->item(0)->nodeValue;

        echo $category . " -- ";
    }

category is an attribute (not a tag). See XML. To obtain it via the DOMElement, use getAttribute(). — hakre
– hakre, Commented Dec 12, 2011 at 22:50

hakre · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 22:51:43Z

2

category is an attribute (not a tag). See XML^Wikipedia. To obtain it via the DOMElement, use getAttribute()^Docs:

foreach ($items as $item)
{
    $category = $item->getAttribute('category');
    echo $category, ' -- ';
}

Same for description, just change the name of the attribute to obtain:

foreach ($items as $item)
{
    echo 'Category: ', $item->getAttribute("category"), "\n",
         'Description: ', $item->getAttribute("description"), ' -- ';
}

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 22:51

hakre

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Comments

nachito · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 23:06:27Z

2

I'd recommend PHP's simplexml_load_file()

$xml = simplexml_load_file($xmlFile);
foreach ($xml->items->item as $item) {
    echo $item['category'] . ", " . $item['name'] . ", " . $item['description'] . "\n";
}

UPDATED, missed the extra tag.

edited Dec 12, 2011 at 23:06

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 22:50

nachito

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4 Comments

nickb Over a year ago

Good idea, poor implementation. It doesn't work.

nachito Over a year ago

@nickb, Thank you for catching that.

hakre Over a year ago

You would have had my upvote if you wouldn't load the file again but get the SimpleXMLElement by using the DOMDocument from the question. Both can work together, see simplexml_import_dom.

nachito Over a year ago

@hakre, Thanks, I didn't know you could do that. Looks like I've got some reading to do tonight.

nickb · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-12 23:00:44Z

1

Here an example using PHP's SimpleXML, specifically the simplexml_load_string function.

$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mainXML>
    <items>
        <item category="Dekorationer" name="Flot væg" description="Meget flot væg. Passer alle stuer." price="149" />
        <item category="Fritid" name="Fodbold" description="Meget rund bold. Rørt af messi." price="600" />
    </items>
</mainXML>';

 $xml = simplexml_load_string( $xml);

 foreach( $xml->items[0] as $item)
 {
     $attributes = $item[0]->attributes();
     echo 'Category: ' . $attributes['category'] . ', Name: ' . $attributes['name'] . ', Description: ' . $attributes['description'];
 }

answered Dec 12, 2011 at 23:00

nickb

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