print elements in xml with DOM or SAX

[Chr_sty]

Hi anyone,

Sorry if i ask you basic or simple question because i'm very-very new to php world and i'm interested in xml development using php. I want to ask about DOM and SAX parser using php.Consider this xml document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE invoice SYSTEM "invoice.dtd" [
<!ENTITY message "Welcome to our store!">
<!ENTITY terms SYSTEM "terms.xml">
]>
<invoice>
<customer>
<name>John Doe</name>
<address>
<line>abc street</line>
<line>California</line>
<line>USA</line>
</address>
</customer>
<![CDATA[
John Doe is a loyal customer
]]>
<date>2004-05-07</date>
<reference>123-344-3</reference>
<items>
<item cid="B345">
<desc>hat</desc>
<price>56.0</price>
<quantity>1</quantity>
<subtotal>56.0</subtotal>
</item>
<item cid="G573">
<desc>Coat</desc>
<price>59.99</price>
<quantity>1</quantity>
<subtotal>59.99</subtotal>
</item>
<item cid="F345">
<desc>Shirt</desc>
<price>39.99</price>
<quantity>1</quantity>
<subtotal>39.99</subtotal>
</item>
<item cid="J678">
<desc>Golf Stick</desc>
<price>150.0</price>
<quantity>1</quantity>
<subtotal>150.0</subtotal>
</item>
</items>
<?php displayTotal(); ?>
<delivery>Via shipping 7 days</delivery>
&terms;
&message;
</invoice>

How to print something like :
Found opening tag of element: invoice
Found PCDATA: ...
Found opening tag of the element: ..
Found attribute: color = ...
Found PCDATA: ....
Found closing tag of the element: ...
……

using SAX or DOM?Beacuse there are entities and CDATA section in xml document. And which one is processing instruction?do we need to remove processing instruction if we're using DOM in php?

Thank you very-very much...

-Christy-

[Shrike]

Expat (SAX) is the quickest way to read an XML document using PHP. It's a built-in library so you just need to create a new XML parser (xml_parser_create()), create some handler functions (start element, end element and cdata) and then feed the XML document to the parser and it'll execute each of your handler functions when it encounters the given type. You then do what you want with the captured data.

RTM www.php.net/xml 🙂

[Weedpacket]

As Shrike said, Expat is the appropriate choice for your situation - it operates by calling your functions when they're triggered by Expat's seeing certain elements in the XML document as they're read ("Ooh; an opening tag, trigger that handler - ooh, now some CDATA -- ooh, a closing tag..."). This is what you're describing.

DOM on the other hand, takes the approach of looking at a document as a single object (hence the name - "Document Object Model") which has what is basically a treelike structure - various nodes (the bits between each <tag> and matchign </tag>) which are related to each other starting from the document-level root and descending through its children, their children, and so on. As a result the DOM structure isn't complete until every open tag (including the root) has been matched up with its corresponding closing tag. This means its hungrier for resources than Expat (which doesn't need to keep such detailed information, and can work on partially-read documents), but with the DOM one can add nodes, remove them, move them around and manipulate them in various other ways, but from your description you won't be needing any of this.

[Chr_sty]

Hi all,

I've tried to figure it out by using domxml :

$root = $doc->document_element();
handleElement($root);

function handleElement($element)
{
if ($element->node_type() == XML_ELEMENT_NODE)
{
echo "Found opening tag of element: " .$element->node_name() . "\n";
$children = $element->children();

 for ($i=0;$i<sizeof($children);$i++)
 {  
    if ($children[$i]->node_type() == XML_ELEMENT_NODE)
    {
      echo "Found opening tag of element: " .$children[$i]->node_name() . "\n";
      $text = $children[$i]->children();
      $cdata = $text[0]->content; 
      echo "Found PCDATA: " . $cdata . "\n";

      $child = $children[$i]->children();
       foreach ($child as $childnode)
       {  handleElement($childnode);
       }
      echo "Found closing tag of element: " .$children[$i]->node_name() . "\n";
    }
    else if ($children[$i]->node_type() == XML_CDATA_SECTION_NODE)
    {
      echo "Found CDATA Section with content = " .$children[$i]->node_value() . "\n";
    }
     else if ($children[$i]->node_type() == XML_ATTRIBUTE_NODE)
    {
      echo "Found attribute: " .$children[$i]->node_name() . " = " .$children[$i]->node_value(). "\n";
    }

    else if ($children[$i]->node_type() == XML_PI_NODE)
    {
      echo "Found Processing Instruction node: Target = " .$children[$i]->node_name(). " with code = " .$children[$i]->node_value() 

."\n";
}
else if ($children[$i]->node_type() == XML_ENTITY_REF_NODE)
{
echo "Found Entity Reference:" .$children[$i]->node_name(). "\n";
}
}
echo "Found closing tag of element: " .$element->node_name(). "\n";

}
}

But i still can't get the attributes of each node and the result still wrong :
Found opening tag of element: invoice
Found opening tag of element: customer
Found PCDATA:

Found opening tag of element: name
Found closing tag of element: name (-->why name element doesn't print any content??)
Found opening tag of element: address
Found opening tag of element: line
Found PCDATA: abc street
Found closing tag of element: line
Found opening tag of element: line
Found PCDATA:California
Found closing tag of element: line
Found opening tag of element: line
Found PCDATA: USA
Found closing tag of element: line
Found closing tag of element: address
Found closing tag of element: customer
Found CDATA Section with content =
John doe is a loyal customer
Found opening tag of element: date
Found PCDATA: 2004-05-07
Found closing tag of element: date
Found opening tag of element: reference
Found PCDATA: 123-344-3
Found closing tag of element: reference
Found opening tag of element: items
Found PCDATA:

Found opening tag of element: item
...

Can someone help me please??I try and i try to fix it.maybe i was wrong to call the function itself for the child element.But i don't know what's wrong..

Regards,
Christy