[Resolved] Will this work? quick question...

Elliott

Hi,

im working on a site that will basically pull records from a database, and store it all as XML, in a php string.

then i will be using xslt to transform it.

What i want to know is....

in my php if i want to have a variable which will contain my xml string...eg

$xml_string = " etc etc ";

then inside the quotes am i able to do php functions such as a while loop for each of the rows in the db?

I obviously want the results from the query rather than "while()2 being output in the string.

Just wondering if the while loop would trigger, and the variable would just contain the values i wanted it to contain.

Thanks

justsomeone

If you have a string with php code in it, and you've told PHP that it's just a string, then it won't attempt to execute it. You will probably need to do something clever to extract the code and execute that seperately.

But, to quote an oldie. "if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here". Why do you have php buried in a text string? If you could split these out at source it would be far easier for you.

bodzan

Inside quotes it wouldn't, it would give you syntax error at best...

However you can do while after the qoute and then just append values to the string:

$xml_string = "start_value";

while (){
    $xml_string .= " other_values";
}

And the string would look like:
"start_value other_values..."

Is that what you're after?

Elliott

Thanks guys for fast response...

think thats what im after bodzan,

Basically here is what i started doing, and didnt think it was gonna work

<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM stories WHERE approved='yes' ORDER BY date DESC";
$run = mysql_query($query);


$xml = "<?xml version="1.0"?>

	while($result = mysql_fetch_array($run))
	{
	$category = $result['category_id'];
	$headline = $result['headline'];
	$para1 = $result['para1'];
	$para2 = $result['para2'];
	$body = $result['body'];
	$journalist = $result['journalist'];
	$jpgurl = $result['jpgurl'];
	$wbmpurl = $result['wbmpurl'];
	$photographer = $result['wbmpurl'];
	$date = $result['date'];

	echo "<story>"
	echo "<category>'".$category."'</category>";
	echo "<headline>'".$headline."'</headline>";
	echo "</story>"";


?>

so the .= puts it at the end of the current string, rather than reassigning it the new value?

Elliott

So from what u understand from your post, it should be like this....

<?php
include('check_login.php');

$query = "SELECT * FROM stories WHERE approved='yes' ORDER BY date DESC";
$run = mysql_query($query);


$xml = "<?xml version="1.0"?>";

	while($result = mysql_fetch_array($run))
	{
	$category = $result['category_id'];
	$headline = $result['headline'];
	$para1 = $result['para1'];
	$para2 = $result['para2'];
	$body = $result['body'];
	$journalist = $result['journalist'];
	$jpgurl = $result['jpgurl'];
	$wbmpurl = $result['wbmpurl'];
	$photographer = $result['wbmpurl'];
	$date = $result['date'];

	$xml .= "<story>";
	$xml .= "<category>'".$category."'</category>";
	$xml .= "<headline>'".$headline."'</headline>";
	$xml .= "</story>";


?>

bodzan

That's exactly it... I am a slow typer or else I would have shown you exactly the same code...

Just mind ther qoutes:

$xml = "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>";

Or it would give you a syntax error...

Elliott

Thanks very much 🙂

Gonna carry on working with it now

Elliott

Hmmm i am now only getting the values of my variables when i echo the $xml variable.

Its not showing the xml tags.

bodzan

It might be that they are there but not showing because somehow they are being recognised like HTML tags of somekind and that might be because of the page not being XML as it is and the browser don't see it as XML...

Ritter63

Hey ppl,

Thought I already aswered to this question but the thing is that your browser sees the XML but thinks it is HTML with odd tags.

$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" ?>';

Doesn't do it for you.

header('Content-Type: text/xml');

would.

If you need to export it BTW you'd have both statements but that's not what you asked...

(SUMMATION:
replace
$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" ?>';
with
header('Content-Type: text/xml');

And you will see the correct result in your browser. If you have further need of the XML you will have both statements.

Hope that helps.