CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpxml
Zachc40
Zachc40

Reputation: 17

Filtering XML data (Removing Duplicate Values)

Learning how to use PHP playing around with a test store generating a grid of products from XML data.

Question: I want to make a filter and i'm struggling with taking the data from the XML and removing duplicate category values.

Dropdown box

Below is a template of the XML:

<products>
    <product>
        <id>0</id>
        <url>product-image.jpg</url>
        <category>Ferraro</category>
        <price>$10.00</price>
        <rating>0</rating>
        <comment>NA</comment>
    </product>

My attempt of working on the php

function removeDup()
{
    $xml = simplexml_load_file("data.xml") or die("Error: Cannot create object");
    $seen = array();
    $productCount = $xml->product->count();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $productCount; $i++) {
        $seen[] = $xml->product[$i]->category;
        // $seen[$i];
    }
    echo array_unique($seen);

Upvotes: 0

Views: 206

Answers (1)

&#193;lvaro Gonz&#225;lez
&#193;lvaro Gonz&#225;lez

Reputation: 146450

First of all, some remarks in no particular order:

  • You're looping elements in a pretty convoluted way. SimpleXML objects are iterable when applies, so you can use a simple foreach construct.

  • array_unique() returns an array and you cannot echo arrays. If, as it seems, you aren't getting PHP Notice: Array to string conversion from PHP that means that you haven't configured your PHP environment to report errors. As quick start, you can set the error_reporting and display_errors directives in your computer's system-wide php.ini file (details here).

  • SimpleXML methods typically returns objects (instances of the SimpleXMLElement class). You often want to force a cast to string, or whatever other type you need, when it doesn't happen automatically.

Said that, your code works fine as far as I can tell. Both your XML and PHP samples are incomplete so it's possible that the error is somewhere else.

In any case, another possible approach would be to generate a key for the array using the unique field (or fields). That way, each new duplicate element automatically overwrites the previous one. This has the added benefit of being able to retrieve additional fields which may not be identical:

<products>
    <product>
        <id>0</id>
        <url>product-image.jpg</url>
        <category>Ferraro</category>
        <price>$10.00</price>
        <rating>0</rating>
        <comment>NA</comment>
    </product>
    <product>
        <id>1</id>
        <url>product-image.jpg</url>
        <category>Ferraro</category>
        <price>$10.00</price>
        <rating>0</rating>
        <comment>NA</comment>
    </product>
    <product>
        <id>2</id>
        <url>product-image.jpg</url>
        <category>Another one</category>
        <price>$10.00</price>
        <rating>0</rating>
        <comment>NA</comment>
    </product>
</products>

$xml = simplexml_load_file("data.xml") or die("Error: could not load data");
$seen = [];
foreach ($xml->product as $product) {
    // Just an example to ilustrate the posibilites
    $category = (string)$product->category;
    $product_count = $seen[$category]['product_count'] ?? 0;
    $seen[$category] = [
        'category_name' => $category,
        'product_count' => $product_count + 1,
    ];
}
var_dump($seen);

array(2) {
  ["Ferraro"]=>
  array(2) {
    ["category_name"]=>
    string(7) "Ferraro"
    ["product_count"]=>
    int(2)
  }
  ["Another one"]=>
  array(2) {
    ["category_name"]=>
    string(11) "Another one"
    ["product_count"]=>
    int(1)
  }
}

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions