Is This How You Validate XML?

[jessjenn]

Just want to make sure if this is how you validate XML. By that I mean checking for errors. Being able to see if it's correctly structured:

Given the following XML data:

$x = '<fruits>
   <fruit>
      <type>apple</type>
      <color>red</color>
   </fruit>
   <fruit>
      <type>lemon</type>
      <color>green</color>
   </fruit>
</fruits>';

This is how I'm validating it:

    $success = xml_parse($parser, $x);

if($success == 0) {
    $error_code = xml_get_error_code($parser);
    echo "error: ".xml_error_string($error_code)."<BR>";
    echo "row number: ".xml_get_current_line_number($parser)."<BR>";
    echo "column number: ".xml_get_current_column_number($parser)."<BR>";
}
else { // validated, now display values    
    foreach($fruits as $value){
        echo $value['type']."|".$value['color']."<br>";
    }
}

Just want to make sure if this is how you validate it. Thanks

[jessjenn]

Oh by the way, do you people know off hand how I could add these characters < > ' " & inside the XML tags? I'm escaping them with their entities (&gt; &lt; etc.) and nothing. When they print out, they print out blank. Any ideas?

[ahundiak]

Validating using a parser is fine.
And use htmlspecialchars when outputing xml to a browser. It takes care of escaping and what not.

Also, use
if ($success === false) {
To check for errors. This protects you from possible future changes.

[jessjenn]

Cool. Thanks. Just wanted to make sure.