[RESOLVED] Multidimensional array looping help, please...

[lisa99]

So I'm not sure whether to call it "multidimensional" or "nested" or what, but basically I've written an API (just some PHP that creates a well formed XML document of products and their related information via some looped MySQL queries) assuming there is a correct "apikey" on the end of the url.

Now that I have this, I'm trying to loop back through the xml and get the data printed back on the screen nicely...but I'm hitting a wall with the php5 simpleXML (which doesn't seem to be that simple at all...)

Here's the code I'm using to read the XML into an array...

$xml=simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/api.php?apikey=1234567'));

echo"<pre>";
var_dump($xml);
echo"</pre>";

Now, I can see everything fine with var_dump($xml);, but I can't seem to get at anything deeper than the first level with a foreach loop.

Shouldn't I be able to access the elements with something like...

foreach($xml['product_list']['product'] as $k=>$v){echo"K:$k<br>V:$v<br><br>";}

When I try that, I get Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

I have attached the XML and what I get when I do the var_dump($xml). They are both kind of long...

I have also tried to copy paste some of the examples from some tutorials, but they only show getting the first level elements anyway and I can seem to make them recursive.

Where did I go wrong and what part of my php do I need a remedial crash course in?

[halojoy]

SimpleXML uses objects.
foreach() is a function that loops array
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.xpath.php

Here I found in XPATH a user comment
where he uses type casting to make an array for foreach
$array = (array)$object;

<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_file('http://example.com/atom_feed.xml');
// hack to work around php 5.0's problems with default namespaces and xpath()
$xml['xmlns'] = '';
// now our queries work:
$titles = $xml->xpath('entry/title');
//type cast into ARRAY
foreach ((array)$titles as $title) {
    print "$title\n";

}
?>

[lisa99]

AH HA!

After looking into how to access the elements without my standard array access methods (which, in looking back, was kind of silly...even though var_dump($xml) made it look like I could even though it did say simplexmlelement() next to each one.

Here's the result I came up with that appears to be working...

$xml=simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents('http://www.rpsenvironmental.com/api.php?apikey=1346798520'));

foreach($xml->product_list->product as $product)
	{
	//get the the basic product information (first loop)
    echo 
	"
	<div class=\"product_div\" id=\"product_div_".$product->product_uid."\">
	<div class=\"product_image\" id=\"product_image_".$product->product_uid."\"><img src=\"".$product->product_image."\" border=\"0\"></div>
	<strong>".$product->product_name."</strong><br />
	".$product->product_tagline."<br />
	<div id=\"product_description_".$product->product_uid."\">".$product->product_description."</div><br />
	<div class=\"product_sub_image\" id=\"product_sub_image_".$product->product_sub_image."\"><img src=\"".$product->product_sub_image."\" border=\"0\"><br />".$product->product_sub_image_tag."</div>
	</div>

<table class=\"sizes\" id=\"sizes_".$product->product_uid."\">
	<tr>
    <th>QTY</th>
    <th>MEASUREMENT</th>
    <th>GROUPING</th>
	<th>MIXTURE</th>
	<th>MIX</th>
	<th>MSRP</th>
	</tr>
";
//if the product is in here, it must have a size -- now get the available sizes and mixtures (second loop)
foreach($product->product_sizes->size as $size)
	{
	echo"
	<tr>
    <td>".$size->size_qty."</td>
    <td>".$size->size_measurement."</td>
    <td>".$size->size_grouped."</td>
	<td>".$size->size_type."</td>
	<td>".$size->size_ratio.":1</td>
	<td>".$size->size_msrp."</td>
	</tr>
	";
	}
echo"</table>";
}


//dump $xml as a reference so I can see all the element names
echo"<br><br><br>###<br><br><br><pre>";
var_dump($xml);
echo"</pre>";

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction halojoy!!!

I hope this helps someone else.