PHP and XML as a database???

itsallgood

Hi all,

This is driving me nuts.

Can you have a large xml file (say 5mb+), and use it as a database with php.

The only way i know is with fopen, but that would download the whole xml file, not read just parts of it as a db.

I've looked around the net, but cannot see any tutorials.

Any help would be great.

Cheers. 😃

NogDog

You could, but I would not: it would be terribly inefficient and slow in comparison to importing the XML data into a database and then using that database.

In order to parse the structure and make use of it, you're going to have to read it all at some point, whether it's as one chunk into a [man]SimpleXML[/man] or [man]DOM[/man] object or via [man]xml_parse/man. And if you want to alter the data in anyway, you will have to overwrite the entire file each time (which also raises the spectre of race conditions and file locking - not insurmountable but yet another thing easier to cope with in a DBMS).

itsallgood

Hi NogDog,

Thanks for your reply.

I cannot find any easy way to import a xml file into a mysql database. I've checked out the links you provided - but they are all new to me, and look quite hard.

I'm trying to setup a site for someone -- they are using a service that provides an xml file each day, with the latest news. I thought there would be an easy way to just treat the xml file as a database - read parts here. I didnt think it would have to be imported each day with a cron job or somthing.

Thanks again for your help!

(p.s if you know any examples or demo code to stright convert xml to a mysql database, that would be great 😉

Cheers.

Krik

Simple XML is real easy to work with

$xml = simplexml_load_file('myxmlfile.php');

foreach ($xml->children() as $parentitem) {

foreach ($parentitem->children() as $childitem) {

    $title = $childitem->title;
    $description = $childitem->description;

    //run database query to insert data

}
}

For more information use php.net's [man]SimpleXML[/man] manual

Weedpacket

itsallgood wrote:
I've checked out the links you provided - but they are all new to me, and look quite hard.

You do realise, however, that those would be the same things you'd have to use if you were going to use the XML as a database anyway - except that it would be quite a bit more complicated.