CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpxmlsimplexml
mglss
mglss

Reputation: 163

How to put XML values of child nodes into an array and return this array?

I have a XML and want to read values from only specific child nodes. Then I want to put those read values into an array and return this array at the end. So I want to get all values of name saved in an array and return this array. In the end, I want to display all values of this array beneath each other in an HTML file.

Here is my idea so far (which does not work obviously):

$items= simplexml_load_file('https://example.com/xml');
$itemList = array();
foreach ($items as $item->name) {
   // Push the values of name of the item nodes into an array
}
return $itemList;

Here is the structure of the XML file:

<item>
   <name>Name 1</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 2</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 3</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 4</name>
</item>

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1108

Answers (4)

mickmackusa
mickmackusa

Reputation: 47894

I don't do a lot of xml processing, so I tried the earlier posted answers (and the answer that came after I posted) with your sample xml and they didn't work for me.

I managed to process your data by writing your xml inside of a parent element before parsing, then looping and casting the name as a string.

Code: (Demo)

$xml = <<<XML
<item>
   <name>Name 1</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 2</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 3</name>
</item>
<item>
   <name>Name 4</name>
</item>
XML;
foreach (simplexml_load_string("<root>{$xml}</root>")->item as $item) {
   $names[] = (string)$item->name;
}
var_export($names);

Output:

array (
  0 => 'Name 1',
  1 => 'Name 2',
  2 => 'Name 3',
  3 => 'Name 4',
)

Upvotes: 0

ariferol01
ariferol01

Reputation: 249

You can use json_encode() and json_decode() for converting xml data to string data type. After that, which tag you want to use, you can use this tag in foreach() loop. And after that, you should to create an empty array and insert all string data to empty array.

    $items = simplexml_load_file('https://example.com/xml');
    $json = json_encode($items);
    $array = json_decode($json,TRUE);

    $names = array();
    foreach ($array["item"] as $key => $value) {
      $names[] = $value["name"];
    }


    print_r($names);

Result:

  Array
(
    [0] => Name 1
    [1] => Name 2
    [2] => Name 3
    [3] => Name 4
)

Upvotes: 1

Death-is-the-real-truth
Death-is-the-real-truth

Reputation: 72299

You need to change foreach() code as well as do assignment inside it:-

$itemList = array();
foreach ($items as $item) { //$item->name will not work here
   $itemList[] = $item->name;
}

Upvotes: 2

u_mulder
u_mulder

Reputation: 54841

Iterate over each item and take it's name property. Explicitly cast name property to string, cause by default $item->name is not a string:

foreach ($items as $item) {
   $itemList[] = (string)$item->name;
}

Upvotes: 3

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