php parse xml document

Question

I've been trying to parse this xml document to loop the 'table' element for the last 2 hours, but it's not working ! I've tried this mainly as reference but it's not working simplexml_load_string returns blank array

here's my XML, how can I loop through the 'table' node ?

    OK
      
        
          
            
              
                
                  
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                  
                
              
            
          
        
      
      00010000845BATMAN Vs SUPERMANPG13
        
        
        0
        
        N
        
        50
      
        
        
        
        
        
      00010000846BATMAN Vs SUPERMAN VIPPG13
        
        
        0
        
        N
        
        50

fusion3k · Accepted Answer

Probably you have some issue with NameSpaceURIs.

NamespaceURIs are characterized by tags with colon () and by NamespaceURI declaration, an attribute (usually of root element) with “xmlns:” prefix:

The main NameSpaceURI, applied to tags without prefix, is characterized by attribute “xmlns”, without comma.

To search for NameSpaceURI elements, you can use ->children(), using as argument relative NameSpaceURI:

$children = $xml->children( 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/' );

or, adding optional parameter is_prefix_, the NameSpaceURI prefix:

$children = $xml->children( 'soap', True );

In your case, before accessing

, you have to select direct parent node:

$xml = simplexml_load_file( $filePath );

$body               = $xml->children( 'soap', True );
$GetMovieListResult = $body->children();
$NewDataSet         = $GetMovieListResult->children()->DatasetXML->NewDataSet;
#                                                      └───────────────────┬┘
#                                         Here we can use standard syntax ─┘

At this point, we can catch, e.g., all movie names:

$movieNames = array[];
foreach( $NewDataSet->Table as $table )
{
    $movieNames[] = (string) $table->Movie_strName;
}

Now $movieNames array you have:

Array
(
    [0] => BATMAN Vs SUPERMAN
    [1] => BATMAN Vs SUPERMAN VIP
)

By this method, you can retrieve any other node value.

Using XPath

A more comfortable method is to use XPath, a syntax that uses path expressions to navigate in XML documents. To using XPath in a Namespaced XML, first we have to register the Namespace(s) that we want to use in the pattern:

$xml->registerXPathNamespace( 'xmlns', 'http://vista.co.nz/services/WSVistaWebClient.DataTypes/1/' );

In this case, I have registered main NameSpaceURI¹. Then we can search for the pattern:

$tables = '//xmlns:Table';

The double slash at beginning of pattern means: “Search for nodes matching following pattern no matter where they are”². Now, we have a set of nodes that we can iterate through as precedent example:

foreach( $tables as $table )
{
    (...)

Read more about XPath

Notes:

We can use any characters combination registering NameSpaces, not necessarily that one used in the document. I.e. if I register main NS in this way: $xml->registerXPathNamespace( 'x', 'http://vista.co.nz/services/WSVistaWebClient.DataTypes/1/' );, then I can construct XPath pattern in this way: //x:Table.
To search the exact descending tree, we can use / instead of //. In this case, however, we have to register all NameSpaces that appear in the tree.

php parse xml document

Answers (1)

Using XPath

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