12. Processing XML Documents (simplexml_01)

Consider the following [data.xml] file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<tribu>
  <teacher>
    <person gender="M">
      <last_name>dupont</last_name>
      <first_name>Jean</first_name>
      <age>28</age>
This is a comment
    </person>
    <section>27</section>
  </teacher>
  <student>
    <person gender="F">
      <last name>martin</last name>
      <first_name>Charline</first_name>
      <age>22</age>
    </person>
    <education>IAIE degree</education>
  </student>
</group>

We analyze this document with the following script:

<?php

// XML file to process
$FILE_NAME = "data.xml";
// processing
$xml = simplexml_load_file($FILE_NAME);
print_r($xml);
print_r($xml->teacher->person['gender']);
$name = $xml->teacher->person->name;
print "name=$name\n";
$gender = $xml->teacher->person['gender'];
print "gender=$gender\n";
$education = $xml->student->education;
print "education=$education\n";
print "isset=".isset($xml->teacher->person->name)."\n";
print "isset=".isset($xml->teacher->person->xx)."\n";

Here we are using a PHP module called [simpleXML] that allows us to process XML documents.

• line 6: loading the XML file
• line 7: displaying the XML document
• line 8: displaying the value of the 'sex' attribute of a teacher: <teacher><person sex='...'>
• line 9: displaying the value of the first tag <teacher><person><name>

Results

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [teacher] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [person] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [gender] => M
                        )

                    [last_name] => Dupont
                    [first_name] => Jean
                    [age] => 28
                )

            [section] => 27
        )

    [student] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [person] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [gender] => F
                        )

                    [last_name] => martin
                    [first_name] => charline
                    [age] => 22
                )

            [Education] => IAIE degree
        )

)
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [0] => M
)
name=dupont
gender=M
education=IAIE design
isset=1
isset=

• lines 1-37: the XML document in the form of a [simpleXML] object.

The previous script does not show us all the possibilities of the [simpleXML] module, but it is sufficient for us to write a final version of the IMPOTS exercise.