Parsing CinemaSource XML > MySQL

[imnsi]

zup,

I have an XML feed from CinemaSource(data syndicating) that I want to parse into a MySQL database using PHP.

I did some research about how to do this, and I read this thread and it sounded simlar, but suggested using SOAP. IS that correct?

Is there a simple way to parse through a XML file and insert into a MySQL? Any pointers are greatly appreciated!

thx in advance!

[drew010]

now there actually is a simple way to parse xml feeds and insert them into a database. however, php5 is required so you may be out of luck. in php4 its not quite as easy to parse an xml document and you have to write your own custom parser for every different xml feed you have.
if php5 is available, look at the simplexml extension http://php.net/manual/en/ref.simplexml.php

otherwise if you are stuck with php4 for now, check out the xml parsing functions at http://php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php

if you need to use the php4 method, and you haven't done much with the xml parsing, you will almost surely need to read over everything on that page and do their examples and look over the code several times in order to understand what the different handlers are doing for starting elements, ending elements and character data.

[Drakla]

Do you know the structure of the xml and the tags which are of use to you? If so I've written a cheeky (i.e. some people might think crap) little couple of functions where you tell it what tags you want, what starts a record and it dumps it all to an array. This is what I did to test the amazon dev kit

/*  Will include a list of tags I want that are scalars and a list that are arrays, 
	and what kicks off a new record */

	// hit one of these, and you start a new product
$newRecordTag='Details';  

	//are outside the newRecordTag
$globalTags=array('TotalResults','TotalPages');

	// can occur once within each newRecordTag	
$scalarTags=array('AverageRating', 'SalesRank', 'ListPrice', 'OurPrice','ImageUrlSmall',
'ImageUrlMedium','ImageUrlLarge','ProductName','Asin', 'Manufacturer', 'Catalog');

	// can occur many times within the newRecordTag	
$multiTags=array('Author','Rating', 'Summary', 'Comment', 'Similarity', 'BrowseName');
	// tags that occur in attributes - throw them into the pot
$attrTags=array('url');

$xmlRecords=array();//where they'll go
$currData=''; $currRecord=0;



$file='DevKit/XMLResponseSamples/webserv-example2-heavy.xml';


parse_xml_records( file_get_contents($file) );

echo "CHECK:".$xmlRecords[0]['Asin'].'<br>';

echo '<pre>'; print_r($xmlRecords); echo '<pre>';	




function parse_xml_records($xmlContent)
{
		// set up the XML parser and functions
	$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();

	// parser automatically puts tags into upper case, breaking xml standards - turn it off
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);

xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, 'cda_func');

if ( !xml_parse($xml_parser, $xmlContent) )
{ 
	die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d", 
				   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)), 
				   xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser))); 
} 

xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
}		

// when a new tag is found clear the data buffer
function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
{
	global $currData, $attrTags, $xmlRecords, $currRecord;
	$currData='';

if( $attrs )
{
	foreach($attrs as $attrib => $value)
	{
		if( in_array($attrib, $attrTags) )
			$xmlRecords[$currRecord][$attrib]=$value;
	}
}
} 

// puts the data buffer into the record with the tag name, 
//or increments the record counter if $newRecordTag tag reached
function endElement($parser, $name)
{ 
	global $currData, $currRecord, $xmlRecords;
	global $newRecordTag, $scalarTags, $multiTags, $globalTags;

if($name==$newRecordTag)
	$currRecord++;
if ( in_array($name, $scalarTags ) )
	$xmlRecords[$currRecord][$name]=$currData;
elseif ( in_array($name, $multiTags) )
	$xmlRecords[$currRecord][$name][]=$currData;
elseif( in_array($name, $globalTags) )
	$xmlRecords[$name]=$currData;
} 

// adds data to the buffer - may be called many times during the same tag.
function cda_func($parser, $data)
{
	global $currData;
	$currData.=$data;
}	

[imnsi]

I am going to attempt to gain access to php5 rather than php4, if that fails then I will go about the suggested way, thank you both very much for your support.

wRide on