Help Parsing XML With PHP

[AsaSchool]

Hey everyone, I am having trouble with a simple task and its driving me nuts. I need to load the contents of an XML file into an array so I can loop through it and insert them into my database. I need to have the name attribute of <word>(ie: "work title") and the contents of <word> (ie: "this is the data") in separate variables/arrays. Can anybody help me with this? I cant seem to set up my script right to pull them into variables. I am starting over and thought I would come here first, before spending another day of scripting.

XML Example:
<glossary>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
</glossary>

Thanks in advance.

[NogDog]

Have you looked at the [man]SimpleXML[/man] extension?

[AsaSchool]

Thanks for your reply Nogdog

I have tried to use simpleXML but its not retrieving the CDATA. I can get the name attributes, but not the actual contents of <word>. Any idea on how to allow the simpleXML to read the contents located in the CDATA?

Thanks again for your reply

[NogDog]

You could load the data with the LIMXML_NOCDATA parameter:

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);

$text = <<<EOD
<glossary>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
</glossary>
EOD;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($text, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA);
foreach($xml->word as $word)
{
   echo "<pre>";
   print_r($word);
   echo "</pre>\n";
}

[AsaSchool]

Here is a very simple code that can work for my application if I can get it to find the CDATA. Again, this is a very simple code and I know it is not compensating for the CDATA tags because it is not echoing it. I have never worked with XML before, so I may be way off-base here.
Thank you for any replays.

$xmlstr = <<<XML
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<glossary>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
<word name="work title">
<![CDATA[This is the data.]]>
</word>
</glossary>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);

foreach ($xml->children() as $second_gen) {
echo ' Word: ' . $second_gen['name']. '<br>';

foreach ($second_gen->children() as $third_gen) {
    echo ' Definition: ' . $xml['word'] . ';'; // this is not locating the CDATA
}

}

[AsaSchool]

Nogdog,
That is working great and is loading the data into usable variables - thank you. I do have one problem I could really use more help on with your code. By what name should I call the CDATA contents. Here is what I am using - I modified your code to work with my task

<?
error_reporting(E_ALL); 

include 'glossary.php';

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);

$text = $xmlstr;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($text, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA); 
foreach($xml->word as $word) 

// { 
  // echo "<pre>"; 
  // print_r($word); 
  // echo "</pre>\n"; 
// }

 echo "".$word['name']." - ".$word['0']."<br>";
?>

When I fun your script it does read the CDATA and it assigns it to [0]. In my adaptation I am trying to call it by using $word['0'], but that is not working. How can I call the CDATA? Calling the $word['name'] is working great.

Thanks again

[NogDog]

It's a bit non-intuitive, yet ultimately rather simple:

foreach($xml->word as $word)
{
   echo "<p>".$word['name']." - ".$word."</p>\n";
} 

[AsaSchool]

Thank you again for your time. That worked great!

[Weedpacket]

An alternative is to use the standard [man]DOM[/man] interface.

$xml = new DOMDocument;
$xml->loadXML($text);
$word_data = array();
foreach($xml->getElementsByTagName('word') as $word)
{
	$word_data[] = $word->nodeValue;
}
print_r($word_data);

[AsaSchool]

Hello Everyone,
Nogdog the script worked great and that data has been taken care of. I do have one more file that I need to insert that is a little more complicated, but I think can use the same principle. I need to load the data into variables that I can work with. I have one area that is giving me a problem and I wanted to see if anybody can help. Here is my new xml data breakdown that I am working with.

<topics>
<item id="1" answer_id="B">
<question><![CDATA[This is where the Main data is located]]></question>
<replies>
<reply id="A"><![CDATA[Answer Option A]]> </reply>
<reply id="B"><![CDATA[Answer Option B]]>
<description><![CDATA[Explination of question]]></description>
</reply>
<reply id="C"><![CDATA[Answer Option C]]></reply>
<reply id="D"><![CDATA[Answer Option D]]></reply>
</replies>
</item>
</topics>

I can get all of the data loaded into variable except for all four of the <reply>'s. I can find the first one, but not the following three others. Can anybody let me know what I am doing wrong. How should I be calling the data for these <reply> items?

Here is the php code I am working with.

<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL); 

include 'xmlFile.php';

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$text = $xmlstr;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($text, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA); 
foreach($xml->item as $item)  {
	foreach ($item->question as $question) {
	foreach ($item->replies as $replyGroup) {
			foreach ($replyGroup->reply as $replyMain) { // This gives me the first reply but not the rest
				foreach ($replyMain->description as $desc) {
				}
			}
 	}
	}

echo "Situation : ".$question."<br>Correct Reponse: ".$replyMain['id']."<br>Why: ".$desc."<br>Reply One: ".$replyMain."<br>Reply Two: <br>Reply Three: <br>Reply Four: <br><br>";

}


?>

Thanks in advance