PHP: XML Parser Functions - Manual
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Last updated: Thu, 15 Jul 2004

CXIX. XML Parser Functions

�vod

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a data format for structured document interchange on the Web. It is a standard defined by The World Wide Web consortium (W3C). Information about XML and related technologies can be found at .

This PHP extension implements support for James Clark's expat in PHP. This toolkit lets you parse, but not validate, XML documents. It supports three source character encodings also provided by PHP: US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8. UTF-16 is not supported.

This extension lets you create XML parsers and then define handlers for different XML events. Each XML parser also has a few parameters you can adjust.

Po�adavky

This extension uses expat, which can be found at . The Makefile that comes with expat does not build a library by default, you can use this make rule for that: 
libexpat.a: $(OBJS)
    ar -rc $@ $(OBJS)
    ranlib $@
A source RPM package of expat can be found at .

Instalace

These functions are enabled by default, using the bundled expat library. You can disable XML support with --disable-xml. If you compile PHP as a module for Apache 1.3.9 or later, PHP will automatically use the bundled expat library from Apache. In order you don't want to use the bundled expat library configure PHP --with-expat-dir=DIR, where DIR should point to the base installation directory of expat.

Verze PHP pro Windows m� vestav�nou podporu pro toto roz���en�. K pou�it� t�chto funkc� nen� t�eba na��tat ��dn� dal�� roz���en�.

Konfigurace b�hu

Toto roz���en� nem� definov�no ��dn� konfigura�n� direktivy.

Typy prost�edk�

xml

The xml resource as returned by xml_parser_create() and xml_parser_create_ns() references an xml parser instance to be used with the functions provided by this extension.

P�eddefinovan� konstanty

Tyto konstanty jsou definov�ny t�mto roz���en�m a budou k dispozici pouze tehdy, bylo-li roz���en� zkompilov�no spole�n� s PHP nebo dynamicky zavedeno za b�hu.

XML_ERROR_NONE (integer)

XML_ERROR_NO_MEMORY (integer)

XML_ERROR_SYNTAX (integer)

XML_ERROR_NO_ELEMENTS (integer)

XML_ERROR_INVALID_TOKEN (integer)

XML_ERROR_UNCLOSED_TOKEN (integer)

XML_ERROR_PARTIAL_CHAR (integer)

XML_ERROR_TAG_MISMATCH (integer)

XML_ERROR_DUPLICATE_ATTRIBUTE (integer)

XML_ERROR_JUNK_AFTER_DOC_ELEMENT (integer)

XML_ERROR_PARAM_ENTITY_REF (integer)

XML_ERROR_UNDEFINED_ENTITY (integer)

XML_ERROR_RECURSIVE_ENTITY_REF (integer)

XML_ERROR_ASYNC_ENTITY (integer)

XML_ERROR_BAD_CHAR_REF (integer)

XML_ERROR_BINARY_ENTITY_REF (integer)

XML_ERROR_ATTRIBUTE_EXTERNAL_ENTITY_REF (integer)

XML_ERROR_MISPLACED_XML_PI (integer)

XML_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ENCODING (integer)

XML_ERROR_INCORRECT_ENCODING (integer)

XML_ERROR_UNCLOSED_CDATA_SECTION (integer)

XML_ERROR_EXTERNAL_ENTITY_HANDLING (integer)

XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING (integer)

XML_OPTION_TARGET_ENCODING (integer)

XML_OPTION_SKIP_TAGSTART (integer)

XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE (integer)

Event Handlers

The XML event handlers defined are:

Tabulka 1. Supported XML handlers

PHP function to set handlerEvent description
xml_set_element_handler() Element events are issued whenever the XML parser encounters start or end tags. There are separate handlers for start tags and end tags.
xml_set_character_data_handler() Character data is roughly all the non-markup contents of XML documents, including whitespace between tags. Note that the XML parser does not add or remove any whitespace, it is up to the application (you) to decide whether whitespace is significant.
xml_set_processing_instruction_handler() PHP programmers should be familiar with processing instructions (PIs) already. <?php ?> is a processing instruction, where php is called the "PI target". The handling of these are application-specific, except that all PI targets starting with "XML" are reserved.
xml_set_default_handler() What goes not to another handler goes to the default handler. You will get things like the XML and document type declarations in the default handler.
xml_set_unparsed_entity_decl_handler() This handler will be called for declaration of an unparsed (NDATA) entity.
xml_set_notation_decl_handler() This handler is called for declaration of a notation.
xml_set_external_entity_ref_handler() This handler is called when the XML parser finds a reference to an external parsed general entity. This can be a reference to a file or URL, for example. See the external entity example for a demonstration.

Case Folding

The element handler functions may get their element names case-folded. Case-folding is defined by the XML standard as "a process applied to a sequence of characters, in which those identified as non-uppercase are replaced by their uppercase equivalents". In other words, when it comes to XML, case-folding simply means uppercasing.

By default, all the element names that are passed to the handler functions are case-folded. This behaviour can be queried and controlled per XML parser with the xml_parser_get_option() and xml_parser_set_option() functions, respectively.

Error Codes

The following constants are defined for XML error codes (as returned by xml_parse()):

XML_ERROR_NONE
XML_ERROR_NO_MEMORY
XML_ERROR_SYNTAX
XML_ERROR_NO_ELEMENTS
XML_ERROR_INVALID_TOKEN
XML_ERROR_UNCLOSED_TOKEN
XML_ERROR_PARTIAL_CHAR
XML_ERROR_TAG_MISMATCH
XML_ERROR_DUPLICATE_ATTRIBUTE
XML_ERROR_JUNK_AFTER_DOC_ELEMENT
XML_ERROR_PARAM_ENTITY_REF
XML_ERROR_UNDEFINED_ENTITY
XML_ERROR_RECURSIVE_ENTITY_REF
XML_ERROR_ASYNC_ENTITY
XML_ERROR_BAD_CHAR_REF
XML_ERROR_BINARY_ENTITY_REF
XML_ERROR_ATTRIBUTE_EXTERNAL_ENTITY_REF
XML_ERROR_MISPLACED_XML_PI
XML_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ENCODING
XML_ERROR_INCORRECT_ENCODING
XML_ERROR_UNCLOSED_CDATA_SECTION
XML_ERROR_EXTERNAL_ENTITY_HANDLING

Character Encoding

PHP's XML extension supports the character set through different character encodings. There are two types of character encodings, source encoding and target encoding. PHP's internal representation of the document is always encoded with UTF-8.

Source encoding is done when an XML document is parsed. Upon creating an XML parser, a source encoding can be specified (this encoding can not be changed later in the XML parser's lifetime). The supported source encodings are ISO-8859-1, US-ASCII and UTF-8. The former two are single-byte encodings, which means that each character is represented by a single byte. UTF-8 can encode characters composed by a variable number of bits (up to 21) in one to four bytes. The default source encoding used by PHP is ISO-8859-1.

Target encoding is done when PHP passes data to XML handler functions. When an XML parser is created, the target encoding is set to the same as the source encoding, but this may be changed at any point. The target encoding will affect character data as well as tag names and processing instruction targets.

If the XML parser encounters characters outside the range that its source encoding is capable of representing, it will return an error.

If PHP encounters characters in the parsed XML document that can not be represented in the chosen target encoding, the problem characters will be "demoted". Currently, this means that such characters are replaced by a question mark.

P��klady

Here are some example PHP scripts parsing XML documents.

XML Element Structure Example

This first example displays the structure of the start elements in a document with indentation.

P��klad 1. Show XML Element Structure

<?php
$file = "data.xml";
$depth = array();

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
{
   global $depth;
   for ($i = 0; $i < $depth[$parser]; $i++) {
       echo "  ";
   }
   echo "$name\n";
   $depth[$parser]++;
}

function endElement($parser, $name)
{
   global $depth;
   $depth[$parser]--;
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
                   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
                   xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
?>

XML Tag Mapping Example

P��klad 2. Map XML to HTML

This example maps tags in an XML document directly to HTML tags. Elements not found in the "map array" are ignored. Of course, this example will only work with a specific XML document type.

<?php
$file = "data.xml";
$map_array = array(
   "BOLD"    => "B",
   "EMPHASIS" => "I",
   "LITERAL"  => "TT"
);

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
{
   global $map_array;
   if (isset($map_array[$name])) {
       echo "<$map_array[$name]>";
   }
}

function endElement($parser, $name)
{
   global $map_array;
   if (isset($map_array[$name])) {
       echo "</$map_array[$name]>";
   }
}

function characterData($parser, $data)
{
   echo $data;
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
// use case-folding so we are sure to find the tag in $map_array
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, true);
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
                   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
                   xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
?>

XML External Entity Example

This example highlights XML code. It illustrates how to use an external entity reference handler to include and parse other documents, as well as how PIs can be processed, and a way of determining "trust" for PIs containing code.

XML documents that can be used for this example are found below the example (xmltest.xml and xmltest2.xml.)

P��klad 3. External Entity Example

<?php
$file = "xmltest.xml";

function trustedFile($file)
{
   // only trust local files owned by ourselves
   if (!eregi("^([a-z]+)://", $file)
       && fileowner($file) == getmyuid()) {
           return true;
   }
   return false;
}

function startElement($parser, $name, $attribs)
{
   echo "&lt;<font color=\"#0000cc\">$name</font>";
   if (sizeof($attribs)) {
       while (list($k, $v) = each($attribs)) {
           echo " <font color=\"#009900\">$k</font>=\"<font
                   color=\"#990000\">$v</font>\"";
       }
   }
   echo "&gt;";
}

function endElement($parser, $name)
{
   echo "&lt;/<font color=\"#0000cc\">$name</font>&gt;";
}

function characterData($parser, $data)
{
   echo "<b>$data</b>";
}

function PIHandler($parser, $target, $data)
{
   switch (strtolower($target)) {
       case "php":
           global $parser_file;
           // If the parsed document is "trusted", we say it is safe
           // to execute PHP code inside it.  If not, display the code
           // instead.
           if (trustedFile($parser_file[$parser])) {
               eval($data);
           } else {
               printf("Untrusted PHP code: <i>%s</i>",
                       htmlspecialchars($data));
           }
           break;
   }
}

function defaultHandler($parser, $data)
{
   if (substr($data, 0, 1) == "&" && substr($data, -1, 1) == ";") {
       printf('<font color="#aa00aa">%s</font>',
               htmlspecialchars($data));
   } else {
       printf('<font size="-1">%s</font>',
               htmlspecialchars($data));
   }
}

function externalEntityRefHandler($parser, $openEntityNames, $base, $systemId,
                                 $publicId) {
   if ($systemId) {
       if (!list($parser, $fp) = new_xml_parser($systemId)) {
           printf("Could not open entity %s at %s\n", $openEntityNames,
                   $systemId);
           return false;
       }
       while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
           if (!xml_parse($parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
               printf("XML error: %s at line %d while parsing entity %s\n",
                       xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($parser)),
                       xml_get_current_line_number($parser), $openEntityNames);
               xml_parser_free($parser);
               return false;
           }
       }
       xml_parser_free($parser);
       return true;
   }
   return false;
}

function new_xml_parser($file)
{
   global $parser_file;

   $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
   xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 1);
   xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
   xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
   xml_set_processing_instruction_handler($xml_parser, "PIHandler");
   xml_set_default_handler($xml_parser, "defaultHandler");
   xml_set_external_entity_ref_handler($xml_parser, "externalEntityRefHandler");
  
   if (!($fp = @fopen($file, "r"))) {
       return false;
   }
   if (!is_array($parser_file)) {
       settype($parser_file, "array");
   }
   $parser_file[$xml_parser] = $file;
   return array($xml_parser, $fp);
}

if (!(list($xml_parser, $fp) = new_xml_parser($file))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}

echo "<pre>";
while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d\n",
                   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
                   xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}
echo "</pre>";
echo "parse complete\n";
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

?>

P��klad 4. xmltest.xml

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "/just/a/test.dtd" [
<!ENTITY plainEntity "FOO entity">
<!ENTITY systemEntity SYSTEM "xmltest2.xml">
]>
<chapter>
 <TITLE>Title &plainEntity;</TITLE>
 <para>
  <informaltable>
   <tgroup cols="3">
    <tbody>
     <row><entry>a1</entry><entry morerows="1">b1</entry><entry>c1</entry></row>
     <row><entry>a2</entry><entry>c2</entry></row>
     <row><entry>a3</entry><entry>b3</entry><entry>c3</entry></row>
    </tbody>
   </tgroup>
  </informaltable>
 </para>
 &systemEntity;
 <section id="about">
  <title>About this Document</title>
  <para>
   <!-- this is a comment -->
   <?php echo 'Hi!  This is PHP version ' . phpversion(); ?>
  </para>
 </section>
</chapter>

This file is included from xmltest.xml:

P��klad 5. xmltest2.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE foo [
<!ENTITY testEnt "test entity">
]>
<foo>
   <element attrib="value"/>
   &testEnt;
   <?php echo "This is some more PHP code being executed."; ?>
</foo>

Obsah
utf8_decode --  Converts a string with ISO-8859-1 characters encoded with UTF-8 to single-byte ISO-8859-1.
utf8_encode -- Encodes an ISO-8859-1 string to UTF-8
xml_error_string -- Get XML parser error string
xml_get_current_byte_index -- Get current byte index for an XML parser
xml_get_current_column_number --  Get current column number for an XML parser
xml_get_current_line_number -- Get current line number for an XML parser
xml_get_error_code -- Get XML parser error code
xml_parse_into_struct -- Parse XML data into an array structure
xml_parse -- Start parsing an XML document
xml_parser_create_ns --  Create an XML parser with namespace support
xml_parser_create -- Create an XML parser
xml_parser_free -- Free an XML parser
xml_parser_get_option -- Get options from an XML parser
xml_parser_set_option -- Set options in an XML parser
xml_set_character_data_handler -- Set up character data handler
xml_set_default_handler -- Set up default handler
xml_set_element_handler -- Set up start and end element handlers
xml_set_end_namespace_decl_handler --  Set up end namespace declaration handler
xml_set_external_entity_ref_handler -- Set up external entity reference handler
xml_set_notation_decl_handler -- Set up notation declaration handler
xml_set_object -- Use XML Parser within an object
xml_set_processing_instruction_handler --  Set up processing instruction (PI) handler
xml_set_start_namespace_decl_handler --  Set up start namespace declaration handler
xml_set_unparsed_entity_decl_handler --  Set up unparsed entity declaration handler


add a note add a note User Contributed Notes
XML Parser Functions
compu_global_hyper_mega_net_2 at yahoo dot com
19-Sep-2004 08:35
The documentation regarding white space was never complete I think.

The XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE doesn't appear to do anything.  I want to preserve the newlines in a cdata section.  Setting XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE to 0 or false doesn't appear to help.  My character_data_handler is getting called once for each line.  This obviously should be reflected in the documentation as well.  When/how often does the handler get called exactly?  Having to build separate test cases is very time consuming.

Inserting newlines myself in my cdata handler is no good either.  For non actual CDATA sections that cause my handler to get called, long lines are split up in multiple calls.  My handler would not be able to tell the difference whether or not the subsequent calls would be due to the fact that the data is coming from the next line or the fact that some internal buffer is long enough for it to 'flush' out and call the handler.
This behaviour also needs to be properly documented.
andrewcare at execulink dot com
01-Jul-2004 11:24
I've been working on a similiar tree-based generator (although somewhat simpler), and I thought that it might be helpful to a developer just starting out:



Simplified source:

<?
$file = /*File to be parsed*/;
$elements = $stack = array();
$count = $depth = 0;

class element{
   var $name = '';
   var $attributes = array();
   var $data = '';
   var $depth = 0;
}

function start_element_handler($parser, $name, $attribs){
   global $elements, $stack, $count, $depth;

   $id = $count;
   $element = new element;
   $elements[$id] = $element;
  
   $elements[$id]->name = $name;
  
   while(list($key, $value) = each($attribs))
       $elements[$id]->attributes[$key] = $value;
  
   $elements[$id]->depth = $depth;
  
   array_push($stack, $id);

   $count++;
   $depth++;
}

function end_element_handler($parser, $name){
   global $stack, $depth;
  
   array_pop($stack);
  
   $depth--;
}

function character_data_handler($parser, $data){
   global $elements, $stack;
  
   $elements[$stack[count($stack)-1]]->data .= $data;
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create('');

xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);

xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "start_element_handler", "end_element_handler");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "character_data_handler");

if(!file_exists($file))
   die("\n<p>\"$file\" does not exist.</p>\n</body>\n</html>");

if(!($handle = fopen($file, "r")))
   die("<p>Cannot open \"$file\".</p>\n</body>\n</html>");

while($contents = fread($handle, 4096))
   xml_parse($xml_parser, $contents, feof($handle));

fclose($handle);

xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

echo "<hr />\n";

$depth = $offset = 0;

while(list($key_a) = each($elements)){
   $depth--;
   $offset = 0;
   if($elements[$key_a]->depth < $depth){
       while($elements[$key_a]->depth != (($elements[$key_a - $offset]->depth) - 1)  || $offset == 0){
           $offset++;
           if($elements[$key_a]->depth == (($elements[$key_a - $offset]->depth) - 1))
               echo "<dl>\n<dt><strong>Element Closed:</strong></dt>\n<dd>" . $elements[$key_a - $offset]->name . "</dd>\n</dl>\n<hr />\n";
       }
       $depth--;
   }
   if($elements[$key_a]->depth == $depth && $depth != 0){
       while($elements[$key_a]->depth != $elements[$key_a - $offset]->depth  || $offset == 0){
           $offset++;
           if($elements[$key_a]->depth == $elements[$key_a - $offset]->depth)
               echo "<dl>\n<dt><strong>Element Closed:</strong></dt>\n<dd>" . $elements[$key_a - $offset]->name . "</dd>\n</dl>\n<hr />\n";
       }
       $depth--;
   }
   $depth++;
   echo "<dl>\n<dt><strong>Element:</strong></dt>\n<dd>" . $elements[$key_a]->name . "</dd>\n</dl>\n";
   echo "<dl>\n<dt><strong>Attributes:</strong></dt>\n";
   if(empty($elements[$key_a]->attributes))
       echo "<dd>No attributes specified</dd>\n";
   else{
       while(list($key_b, $value) = each($elements[$key_a]->attributes))
           echo "<dd>$key_b=\"$value\"</dd>\n";
   }
   echo "</dl>\n<dl>\n<dt><strong>Data:</strong></dt>\n";
   if(trim($elements[$key_a]->data) == '')
       echo "<dd>No data specified</dd>\n";
   else
       echo "<dd>" . $elements[$key_a]->data . "</dd>\n";
   echo "</dl>\n<dl>\n<dt><strong>Depth:</strong></dt>\n<dd>" . $elements[$key_a]->depth . "</dd>\n</dl>\n<hr />\n";
   $depth++;
}

$depth--;

for($i = $depth; $i >= 0; $i--){
   $offset = 0;
   $count = count($elements) - 1;
   for($j = 0; $j <= $count; $j++){
       if($elements[$count - $j]->depth == $depth){
           echo "<dl>\n<dt><strong>Element Closed:</strong></dt>\n<dd>" . $elements[$count - $j]->name . "</dd>\n</dl>\n<hr />\n";
           break;
       }
   }
   $depth--;
}
?>

A few good tutorials on the subject of parsing XML with PHP:
talraith at withouthonor dot com
29-Jun-2004 01:11
If you are looking for some heavy duty code to parse or create XML documents, then may I suggest taking a look at a class module I am working on.  The module is complete except for support of namespaces and XPath.

The class takes a string of XML code and creates a TRUE object tree.  Likewise, you can create a tree in your code and generate an XML document.  There are no eval() statements used at all unlike some of the other examples shown here.

I posted this a while ago, but it has since been buried by a number of posts and I believe it to be beneficial to anyone looking to use XML / PHP to see this information.

for the source code.  Sample usage can be found in my post below.
nuncanada at xaraya dot com
24-Jun-2004 06:55
I wanted something which would make it easy to parse SimpleXML, providing a structure which resembled Xquery. Probably we will be able to handle this much better with PHP 5's DOM extension, but till then here it is:
 
 It will take a input like:
 <moldb>
   <molecule>
       <name>Alanine</name>
       <symbol>ala</symbol>
       <code>A</code>
       <type>hydrophobic</type>
   </molecule>
 
   <molecule>
       <name>Lysine</name>
       <symbol>lys</symbol>
       <code>K</code>
       <type>charged</type>
   </molecule>
 </moldb>
 
 And consctruct the following array:

array(12) {
  ["/"]=>
  array(1) {
   [0]=>
   string(5) "moldb"
  }
  ["/moldb"]=>
  array(2) {
   [0]=>
   string(11) "molecule[0]"
   [1]=>
   string(11) "molecule[1]"
  }
  ["/moldb/molecule[0]"]=>
  array(4) {
   [0]=>
   string(4) "name"
   [1]=>
   string(6) "symbol"
   [2]=>
   string(4) "code"
   [3]=>
   string(4) "type"
  }
  ["/moldb/molecule[0]/code"]=>
  string(1) "A"
  ["/moldb/molecule[0]/name"]=>
  string(7) "Alanine"
  ["/moldb/molecule[0]/symbol"]=>
  string(3) "ala"
  ["/moldb/molecule[0]/type"]=>
  string(11) "hydrophobic"
  ["/moldb/molecule[1]"]=>
  array(4) {
   [0]=>
   string(4) "name"
   [1]=>
   string(6) "symbol"
   [2]=>
   string(4) "code"
   [3]=>
   string(4) "type"
  }
  ["/moldb/molecule[1]/code"]=>
  string(1) "K"
  ["/moldb/molecule[1]/name"]=>
  string(6) "Lysine"
  ["/moldb/molecule[1]/symbol"]=>
  string(3) "lys"
  ["/moldb/molecule[1]/type"]=>
  string(7) "charged"
}

The code can be seen at:
torsten at jserver dot de
07-Jun-2004 10:43
I expanded the function below a little bit, cause I wasn't really happy with the array created. This version creates an array, which has the same structure as the XML-Tree

<?php

   // put elements, that need to be put in a list
   // here
   $XML_LIST_ELEMENTS = array( "concert", "song" );

   function makeXMLTree($file)
   {
       // read file
       $open_file = fopen($file, "r");
       $data = "";
       while ($r=fread($open_file,8192) ) {
           $data .= $r;
       }

       // create parser
       $parser = xml_parser_create();
       xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);
       xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);
       xml_parse_into_struct($parser,$data,$values,$tags);
       xml_parser_free($parser);

       // we store our path here
       $hash_stack = array();
      
       // this is our target
       $ret = array();
       foreach ($values as $key => $val) {
        
         switch ($val['type']) {
             case 'open':
               array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
               if (isset($val['attributes']))
                   $ret = composeArray($ret, $hash_stack, $val['attributes']);
               else
                   $ret = composeArray($ret, $hash_stack);
               break;

             case 'close':
               array_pop($hash_stack);
               break;

             case 'complete':
               array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
               $ret = composeArray($ret, $hash_stack, $val['value']);
               array_pop($hash_stack);
              
               // handle attributes
               if (isset($val['attributes']))
               {
                   while(list($a_k,$a_v) = each($val['attributes']))
                   {
                     $hash_stack[] = $val['tag']."_attribute_".$a_k;
                     $ret = composeArray($ret, $hash_stack, $a_v);
                     array_pop($hash_stack);
                   }
               }
              
              
               break;
         }
     }
    
     return $ret;
   }
  
   function &composeArray($array, $elements, $value=array())
   {
     global $XML_LIST_ELEMENTS;
    
     // get current element
     $element = array_shift($elements);
    
     // does the current element refer to a list
     if (in_array($element,$XML_LIST_ELEMENTS))
     {
         // more elements?
         if(sizeof($elements) > 0)
         {
           $array[$element][sizeof($array[$element])-1] = &composeArray($array[$element][sizeof($array[$element])-1], $elements, $value);
         }
         else // if (is_array($value))
         {
           $array[$element][sizeof($array[$element])] = $value;
         }
     }
     else
     {
         // more elements?
         if(sizeof($elements) > 0)
         {
           $array[$element] = &composeArray($array[$element], $elements, $value);
         }
         else
         {
           $array[$element] = $value;
         }
     }
      
     return $array;
   }
  
   echo "<pre>";
   $res = makeXMLTree($xml_file);
   var_dump($res);
   echo "</pre>";
?>
juliano at setor4 dot com
25-May-2004 04:56
An update of rcotta at ig dot com dot br. The function below will not overwrite an existent element.
<?
   function makeXMLTree($file) {
        
       $open_file = fopen($file, "r");
         $data = fread($open_file, filesize($file));
         $ret = array();

         $parser = xml_parser_create();
         xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);
         xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);
         xml_parse_into_struct($parser,$data,$values,$tags);
         xml_parser_free($parser);

         $hash_stack = array();
       $a=0;
         foreach ($values as $key => $val) {
           switch ($val['type']) {
                   case 'open':
                       array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
                   break;

                   case 'close':
                       array_pop($hash_stack);
                   break;

                   case 'complete':
                       array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);

                       // uncomment to see what this function is doing
                   /* echo("\$ret[$a][" . implode($hash_stack, "][") . "] = '{$val[value]}';\n");
                     $a++;*/
                
                     eval("
                           \$ret[\$a][" . implode($hash_stack, "][") . "] = '{$val[value]}';
                           \$a++;");
                       array_pop($hash_stack);
                   break;
             }
         }
         return $ret;
       }
  
   $res = makeXMLTree($xml_file);
   print_r($res);
?>
rich at launchcode dot co dot uk
21-May-2004 10:08
The makeXMLTree function posted below proved to be a life-saver for me in a recent project, however I had to modify it to work in an E_ALL environment (the original will throw up a load of constant Warnings in the eval'd code), so I hope some of you find the following variation of it useful:

<?php
   $result = makeXMLTree($xml);
   print_r($result);

   function makeXMLTree ($data)
   {
       $output = array();
      
       $parser = xml_parser_create();

       xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
       xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
       xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $data, $values, $tags);
       xml_parser_free($parser);
      
       $hash_stack = array();
      
       foreach ($values as $key => $val)
       {
           switch ($val['type'])
           {
               case 'open':
                   array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
                   break;
          
               case 'close':
                   array_pop($hash_stack);
                   break;
          
               case 'complete':
                   array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
                   eval("\$output['" . implode($hash_stack, "']['") . "'] = \"{$val['value']}\";");
                   array_pop($hash_stack);
                   break;
           }
       }
      
       return $output;
   }
?>
rcotta at ig dot com dot br
17-May-2004 12:11
I've written this function that will parse a XML file and put its contents into an array.

If more than one element with the same name on the same level coexist, the last one will overwrite the former. This is a problem for some XML but is very useful if you don't have two elements with the same name on the same level.

<?php

   $res = makeXMLTree(file_get_contents('data.xml'));
   print_r($res);

   function makeXMLTree($data)
   {
     $ret = array();

     $parser = xml_parser_create();
     xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);
     xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);
     xml_parse_into_struct($parser,$data,$values,$tags);
     xml_parser_free($parser);

     $hash_stack = array();

     foreach ($values as $key => $val)
     {
         switch ($val['type'])
         {
           case 'open':
               array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);
           break;

           case 'close':
               array_pop($hash_stack);
           break;

           case 'complete':
               array_push($hash_stack, $val['tag']);

               // uncomment to see what this function is doing
               // echo("\$ret[" . implode($hash_stack, "][") . "] = '{$val[value]}';\n");

               eval("\$ret[" . implode($hash_stack, "][") . "] = '{$val[value]}';");
               array_pop($hash_stack);
           break;
         }
     }

     return $ret;
   }
?>

Create a file data.xml like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<super>
   <val1>Some Value</val1>
   <val2>Another one</val2>
   <val3>This will be overwritten</val3>
   <val3>This one will be the one to be shown</val3>
</super>

And the output will be:

Array
(
   [super1] => Array
       (
           [val1] => Some Value
           [val2] => Another one
           [val3] => This one will be the one to be shown
       )
)

I hope this helps someone ;)
johnt at divector dot net
12-May-2004 08:40
When I first read this documentation, and tried the examples none of which seemed to work. The contributed ones in the notes were a bit "long winded" for a simple example to demonstrate a working example of the required functions. So I came up with this, while not perfect, it does execute and give an idea of the functions and Call back functions to create an XML Parser.

<?PHP
// Variables
$file = "xmldata.xml";
$feed = array();
$key = "";
$info = "";
$in_HEAD = false;

function startElement($xml_parser, $name, $attrs ) {
  global $feed, $key, $in_HEAD;
  $key = $name;
  if( $name == "HEAD" )
   $in_HEAD = true; }

function endElement($xml_parser, $name) {
// The Workhorse of the Call Back Functions
// Most of the programming will be put in this function.

  global $feed, $key, $info, $in_HEAD;
                                          
  if( $name == "HEAD" )                   
   $in_HEAD = false;                       
  if($in_HEAD==false)
   $key = $name;
  elseif( $in_HEAD )
   $key = "HEAD_".$name;
 
  $feed[$key] = $info;
  $info = ""; }

function charData($xml_parser, $data ) {
  // $xml_parser - The resource ID for this parser
  // $data - The character data returned by the parser, from the XML file
  global $info;
  $info .= $data; }

// The Beginning of Execution *******************************************

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "charData" );
$fp = fopen($file, "r");
while ($data = fread($fp, 8192))
  !xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp));
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

// Start Web page
echo "<HTML>\n";
echo "<HEAD>\n";
echo "<TITLE>".$feed['HEAD_TITLE']."</TITLE>\n";
echo "</HEAD>\n";
echo "<BODY>\n";
echo "<CENTER><H1>".$feed['HEAD_TITLE']."</H1></CENTER>\n";
echo "<HR>\n";
foreach( $feed as $assoc_index => $value )
  {
   echo "\$assoc_index = $assoc_index<BR> \$value = $value<BR><BR>\n";
  }
echo "</BODY>\n";
echo "</HTML>\n";
?>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<XML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>XML Data Demo</TITLE>
<DESCRIPTION>XML Data Demo for testing XML parsers. A Simple demo for demonstrating the PHP Call Back functions.</DESCRIPTION>
</HEAD>
<FUNCLIST>The functions necessary for Parser Creation are: xml_parser_create(); xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "charData" );</FUNCLIST>
<RECAP>The Really neat thing here is allowing the programmer complete control over these call back functions to parse virtually any XML file. In my opinion, an extra variable in the Call Back functions allowing an array to be passed would be better, this would keep globals from being used.</RECAP>
</XML>
Jerome PAUTEX - JeromeNOT at SPAMrepie dot fr
10-May-2004 01:30
For convert array to XML...

use :

Function array2xml($array) {
   foreach($array as $k => $v) {
       if(is_array($v) == TRUE) {
           print("<$k>\n");
               array2xml($v);
           print("</$k>\n");
       }
       else {
           print("<$k>" . $v . "</$k>");
       }
   }
}
moc.oohay@mijito
06-May-2004 05:21
I found a type-o in the XMLTag->addChild function.  I re-examined the code and changed the function so it is a little cleaner.

Also, as an interesting side-note.  I ran the script on a 1 MB XML file.  The php.exe memory usage exceeded 50 MB during runtime.  I did a print_r($XML_data) dumping into a plain-text file which resulted in a 70 MB text file. However, after I removed all the [spaces] used for formatting and readability the file size was reduced to 5 MB.

This script may not be efficient for very large data sets. ;)

I am very pleased that the script parsed the file without error.  A very successful "real world" test.

Repaired addChild:
   function addChild($XMLTag_obj) {
       $key = $XMLTag_obj->name;
      
       // If this tag *name* is not already a child initialize it.       
       if ( !isset($this->children[$key][0]) ) {
           $this->children[$key][0] = 0;   
       }

       // Get the next array index. This is the next available location to store the child
       $index = $this->children[$key][0] + 1;

       // Add the child and update the tag count
       $this->children[$key][$index] = $XMLTag_obj;
       $this->children[$key][0]++;

       // Return the Child Tag
       return $this->children[$key][$index];
   }
otijim at AT at yahoo dot dot dot com
03-May-2004 07:47
After going through all the examples of XML to data structure examples posted here and having problems will all of them I came up with my own.  It's not thoroughly tested but works very well for me.

This example will not give any 'depricated pass by reference' errors and returns false on mal-formed XML.

Example of using the Classes:
<?
$myXMLParser = new XMLStructParser;
$cds_XMLTag = $myXMLParser->parse('<cd_list><cd title="Best of PBS"><track number="1">Sesame Street Theme</track></cd></cd_list>');
print $bookXMLTag->children['cd_list'][1]->children['track'][1]->cdata;
?>

Here are the two class files:
XMLStructParse.phpclass
<?

require_once("XMLTag.phpclass");
class XMLStructParser  {
   var $index;        // Tracks position in the stack
   var $obj_data;    // Holds the root XMLTag object
   var $stack;        // Stack to track where we are in the XML Hiarchy

  
   // Constructor
   function XMLStructParser() {
   }
  
   function parse($data) {
       // Prepare the Object Array
       $this->index = 0;
       $this->obj_data = new XMLTag("XML");
      
       // Prepare the Stack
       $this->stack[$this->index] = &$this->obj_data;
      
       // Setup the XML Parser       
       $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
       xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, false);
       xml_set_object($xml_parser, $this);
       xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "tag_open", "tag_close");
       xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "cdata");

       // Parse the XML
       $parse_results = xml_parse($xml_parser, $data);

       // Clean up
       xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

       if ($parse_results) {
           return $this->obj_data;
       } else {
           return false;
       }
   }
  
   function tag_open($parser, $tag, $attributes) {
       // Create the new Child tag
       $theTag = new XMLTag($tag);
       $theTag->addAttributes($attributes);

       // Add the child tag to the current tag. The & is necessary to get a pointer to the object child in the object. Not a Clone of it.
       $childTag = &$this->stack[$this->index]->addChild($theTag);
      
       // Make the new child tag now be the current tag
       $this->index++;
       $this->stack[$this->index] = &$childTag;
   }

   function cdata($parser, $cdata) {
       $this->stack[$this->index]->cdata = $cdata;
   }

   function tag_close($parser, $tag) {
       $this->index--;
   }
}

?>

XMLTag.phpclass
<?

class XMLTag {
   var $name;            // String
   var $cdata;            // String
   var $children;        // Array of children.  array['tag'][0] is the tag count.  [1] ... [n] reference each child tag object   

   // Constructor
   function XMLTag($name, $cdata="") {
       $this->name = $name;
       $this->cdata = $cdata;
   }
  

   // Addes attributes as children.  An attribute is really just a quick way to do a child tag anyways
   function addAttributes($attribute_array) {
       foreach ($attribute_array as $key => $value) {
           // If no children by this name exist then initialize it.
           if ( !isset($this->children[$key][0]) ) {
               $index = 1;
               $this->children[$key][0] = 0;   
           } else {
               $index = $this->children[$key][0] + 1;
           }
          
           // Assign the value and increment the tag count
           $this->children[$key][$index] = new XMLTag($key, $value);
           $this->children[$key][0]++;
       }
      
       return;
   }
  
   function addChild($XMLTag_obj) {
       $key = $XMLTag_obj->name;
      
       // If this tag *name* is not already a child initialize it.       
       if ( !isset($this->children[$key][0]) ) {
           $index = 1;
           $this->children[$key][0] = 0;   
       } else {
           $index = $$this->children[$key][0] + 1;
       }

       // Add the child and update the tag count
       $this->children[$key][$index] = $XMLTag_obj;
       $this->children[$key][0]++;

       // Return the Child Tag
       return $this->children[$key][$index];
   }
}
?>
nate at adeptisoft dot com
22-Apr-2004 01:51
just a slight modification to info at b1g dot de's wonderful RDFParse class... I have changed "titel" to "title" and added the description.. so output should look like:

[1] => Array
   (
       [description] => Some story here
       [title] => A title
       [link] =>
   )

-------

<?php
class RDFParser {
   var $_item;
   var $_url;

   function RDFParser($url) {
       $this->_url = $url;
   }

   function ParseRDF() {
       $this->_item = array('i' => 0);

       $parser = xml_parser_create();
       xml_set_object($parser, &$this);
       xml_set_element_handler($parser, "_startElement", "_endElement");
       xml_set_character_data_handler($parser, "_charHandler");

       $fp = fopen($this->_url, "r");
       while(!feof($fp)) {
           $line = fgets($fp, 4096);
           xml_parse($parser, $line);
       }
       fclose($fp);

       xml_parser_free($parser);

       return($this->_item['items']);
   }

   function _startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)  {
       $this->_item['maychar'] = true;

       if($name=="ITEM") {
           $this->_item['mayparse'] = true;
           $this->_item['i']++;
       } elseif($name=="TITLE") {
           $this->_item['akt'] = "TITLE";
       } elseif($name=="LINK") {
           $this->_item['akt'] = "LINK";
       } elseif($name=="DESCRIPTION") {
           $this->_item['akt'] = "DESCRIPTION";
       } else {
           $this->_item['maychar'] = false;
       }
   }

   function _endElement($parser, $name) {
       if($name=="ITEM") {
           $this->_item['mayparse'] = false;
       } elseif($name=="TITLE" || $name=="LINK" || $name="DESCRIPTION") {
           $this->_item['maychar'] = false;
       }
   }

   function _charHandler($parser, $data) {
       if($this->_item['maychar'] && $this->_item['mayparse']) {
           if($this->_item['akt']=="TITLE") {
               $this->_item['items'][$this->_item['i']]['title'] = $data;
           }
           if($this->_item['akt']=="LINK") {
               $this->_item['items'][$this->_item['i']]['link'] = $data;
           }
           if($this->_item['akt']=="DESCRIPTION") {
               $this->_item['items'][$this->_item['i']]['description'] = $data;
           }
       }
   }
}
?>
chibo at gmx dot de
15-Apr-2004 11:09
TO: jon at gettys dot org (the simple xml parser)

For german language change the function:

function characterData($parser, $data) {
   global $obj;
   eval($obj->tree.'->data=\''. $data .'\';');
}

to:

function characterData($parser, $data) {
   global $obj;
   eval($obj->tree.'->data.=\''. $data .'\';');
}

to get all the value of the attribute! otherwise you get only the last piece of the entire string. 

Greets,

Chi
info at b1g dot de
10-Apr-2004 04:53
Use this class to parse RSS/RDF Feeds. You will get an array with Title and Link of every item. The array will look like this:

Array
(
   [1] => Array
       (
           [link] =>
           [titel] => Title of Item 1
       )

   [2] => Array
       (
           [link] =>
           [titel] => Title of Item 2
       )

     .......
)

Here is the code:
<?php
class RDFParser {
   var $_item;
   var $_url;
  
   function RDFParser($url) {
       $this->_url = $url;
   }

   function ParseRDF() {
       $this->_item = array('i' => 0);
      
       $parser = xml_parser_create();
       xml_set_object($parser, &$this);
       xml_set_element_handler($parser, "_startElement", "_endElement");
       xml_set_character_data_handler($parser, "_charHandler");
      
       $fp = fopen($this->_url, "r");
       while(!feof($fp)) {
           $line = fgets($fp, 4096);
           xml_parse($parser, $line);
       }
       fclose($fp);
      
       xml_parser_free($parser);
      
       return($this->_item['items']);
   }
  
  
   function _startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)  {
       $this->_item['maychar'] = true;
      
       if($name=="ITEM") {
           $this->_item['mayparse'] = true;
           $this->_item['i']++;
       } elseif($name=="TITLE") {
           $this->_item['akt'] = "TITLE";
       } elseif($name=="LINK") {
           $this->_item['akt'] = "LINK";
       } else {
           $this->_item['maychar'] = false;
       }
   }
  
   function _endElement($parser, $name) {
       if($name=="ITEM") {
           $this->_item['mayparse'] = false;
       } elseif($name=="TITLE" || $name=="LINK") {
           $this->_item['maychar'] = false;
       }
   }
  
   function _charHandler($parser, $data) {
       if($this->_item['maychar'] && $this->_item['mayparse']) {
           if($this->_item['akt']=="TITLE") {
               $this->_item['items'][$this->_item['i']]['titel'] = $data;
           }
           if($this->_item['akt']=="LINK") {
               $this->_item['items'][$this->_item['i']]['link'] = $data;
           }
       }
   }
}

$rdf =& new RDFParser("");
print_r($rdf->ParseRDF());
?>

Dirty code, I know, but it works fine for me.
askgopal [AT] sify [PERIOD] com
06-Apr-2004 10:47
A simple XML parser that would allow us to retrieve a value of an element using its path.

-- cut here --
<?
$_elements = array();
$_cur_path = '';
                                                                              
function parse_xml_config($file, $elems)
{
       global  $_elements;
                                                                              
       $e = error_reporting(0);
       if (($fp = fopen($file, 'r')) === false)
               return ($elements);
       $xph = xml_parser_create();
       if (is_resource($xph)) {
               xml_parser_set_option($xph, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, true);
               if (!xml_set_element_handler($xph,
                   'start_elem_handler', 'end_elem_handler'))
                       return ($elements);
               while (($data = fread($fp, 4096)))
                       xml_parse($xph, $data, feof($fp));
               xml_parser_free($xph);
       }
       fclose($fp);
       $elems = $_elements;
       error_reporting($e);
}
                                                                              
function start_elem_handler($xph, $name, $attrs)
{
       global  $_elements, $_cur_path;
                                                                              
       $e = error_reporting(0);
       $_cur_path .= "/$name";
       while (list($key,$val) = each($attrs)) {
               $index = "$_cur_path/$key";
               if (isset($_elements[$index])) {
                       $tmp = $_elements[$index];
                       $_elements[$index] = array();
                       array_push($_elements[$index], $tmp);
                       array_push($_elements[$index], $val);
               } else
                       $_elements[$index] = $val;
       }
       error_reporting($e);
}
                                                                              
function end_elem_handler($xph, $name)
{
       global  $_elements, $_cur_path;
       $_cur_path = dirname($_cur_path);
}

/* main prog */
$config = array();
parse_xml_config('/usr/local/etc/myconfig.xml', &$config);
print_r($config);
?>
-- paste --

if the input is:
<config>
  <db host="localhost" username="foo" password="bar" db="test"/>
  <column name="x" value="x1"/>
  <column name="y" value="y1"/>
</config>

the output would be:
Array
(
   [/CONFIG/DB/HOST] => localhost
   [/CONFIG/DB/USERNAME] => foo
   [/CONFIG/DB/PASSWORD] => bar
   [/CONFIG/DB/DB] => test
   [/CONFIG/COLUMN/NAME] => Array
       (
           [0] => x
           [1] => y
       )
 
   [/CONFIG/COLUMN/VALUE] => Array
       (
           [0] => x1
           [1] => y1
       )
 
)
odders
19-Mar-2004 06:36
I wrote a simple xml parser mainly to deal with rss version 2. I found lots of examples on the net, but they were all masive and bloated and hard to manipulate.

Output is sent to an array, which holds arrays containg data for each item.

Obviously, you will have to make modifications to the code to suit your needs, but there isnt a lot of code there, so that shouldnt be a problem.

<?php

   $currentElements = array();
   $newsArray = array();

   readXml("./news.xml");

   echo("<pre>");
   print_r($newsArray);
   echo("</pre>");

   // Reads XML file into formatted html
   function readXML($xmlFile)
   {

     $xmlParser = xml_parser_create();

     xml_parser_set_option($xmlParser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, false);
     xml_set_element_handler($xmlParser, startElement, endElement);
     xml_set_character_data_handler($xmlParser, characterData);

     $fp = fopen($xmlFile, "r");

     while($data = fread($fp, filesize($xmlFile))){
         xml_parse($xmlParser, $data, feof($fp));}

     xml_parser_free($xmlParser);

   }

   // Sets the current XML element, and pushes itself onto the element hierarchy
   function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
   {

     global $currentElements, $itemCount;

     array_push($currentElements, $name);

     if($name == "item"){$itemCount += 1;}

   }

   // Prints XML data; finds highlights and links
   function characterData($parser, $data)
   {

     global $currentElements, $newsArray, $itemCount;

     $currentCount = count($currentElements);
     $parentElement = $currentElements[$currentCount-2];
     $thisElement = $currentElements[$currentCount-1];

     if($parentElement == "item"){
         $newsArray[$itemCount-1][$thisElement] = $data;}
     else{
         switch($name){
           case "title":
               break;
           case "link":
               break;
           case "description":
               break;
           case "language":
               break;
           case "item":
               break;}}

   }

   // If the XML element has ended, it is poped off the hierarchy
   function endElement($parser, $name)
   {

     global $currentElements;

     $currentCount = count($currentElements);
     if($currentElements[$currentCount-1] == $name){
         array_pop($currentElements);}

   }

?>
talraith at withouthonor dot com
03-Feb-2004 10:27
I have created a class set that both parses XML into an object structure and from that structure creates XML code.  It is mostly finished but I thought I would post here as it may help someone out or if someone wants to use it as a base for their own parser.  The method for creating the object is original compared to the posts before this one.

The object tree is created by created seperate tag objects for each tag inside the main document object and associating them together by way of object references.  An index table is created so that each tag is assigned an ID number (in numerical order from 0) and can be accessed directly using that ID number.  Each tag has object references to its children.  There are no uses of eval() in this code.

The code is too long to post here, so I have made a HTML page that has it: 

Sample code would look something like this:

<?

$xml = new xml_doc($my_xml_code);
$xml->parse();

$root_tag =& $xml->xml_index[0];
$children =& $root_tag->children;

// and so forth

// To create XML code using the object, would be similar to this:

$my_xml = new xml_doc();

$root_tag = $my_xml->CreateTag('ROOTTAG');
$my_xml->CreateTag('CHILDTAG',array(),'',$root_tag);

// The following is used for the CreateTag() method
// string Name (The name of the child tag)
// array Attributes (associative array of attributes for tag)
// string Content (textual data for the child tag)
// int ParentID (Index number for parent tag)

// To generate the XML, use the following method

$out_xml = $my_xml->generate();

?>
bradparks at bradparks dot com
17-Dec-2003 10:38
Hey;

If you need to parse XML on an older version of PHP (e.g. 4.0) or if you can't get the expat extension enabled on your server, you might want to check out the Saxy and DOMIT! xml parsers from Engage Interactive. They're opensource and pure php, so no extensions or changes to your server are required. I've been using them for over a month on some projects with no problems whatsoever!

Check em out at:

DOMIT!, a DOM based xml parser, uses Saxy (included)


or

Saxy, a sax based xml parser


Brad
condor33NOSPAM at tiscali dot it
09-Dec-2003 07:01
This is a variation to the routine posted here by
jon at gettys dot org to convert an XML file
into a php structure.
I did not find a cleaner method than "eval"
as he asks, but anyway his way is not so bad.

<?php
Class xmlread
 {

   var $tree = '$this->ogg';
   var $ogg    ;
   var $cnt = 0;

   /************
   * change_to_array
   * is called by startElement
   * to check if there is need
   * to change element to array
   ************/
   function change_to_array($test,$is_arr) {
   if ($test and !$is_arr):  //if element is set, change it to array
     eval('$tmp = '.$this->tree.';'); //save element to tmp
     eval('unset('.$this->tree.');'); //unset element
     eval(''.$this->tree.'= array();'); //transform $this->tree in an array
     eval('array_push('.$this->tree.',$tmp);');//push old object
                                               //into the array
     return true;
   endif;
   if ($is_arr)
     return true;
   }

   /************
   * startElement
   ************/
   function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
   {
     $this->tree = $this->tree."->".$name;  //add tag to tree string
                                           //test if element is an array
     eval('$is_arr = is_array('.$this->tree.');');
                                       //test if element is set
     eval('$test = isset('.$this->tree.');');
                                 //if is already set (and not array)...
                                 //...change it to array
     $is_arr = $this->change_to_array($test,$is_arr);

     if ($is_arr):                  //if is an array
       $this->cnt = $this->cnt+1;    //increase counter
                   //and set tree-string to add element
       $this->tree = $this->tree.'['.$this->cnt.']';
     endif;

   return true;}

   /************
   * characterData
   ************/
   function characterData($parser, $data)
   {
     if (trim($data)!=''):
       $data = addslashes($data);
               //add data to tree set up by startElement()
       eval($this->tree."='".trim($data)."';");
     endif;
   return true;}

   /************
   * endElement
   ************/
   function endElement($parser, $name)
   { //cut last ->element
     $pos  = strrpos($this->tree, ">");
     $leng = strlen($this->tree);
     $pos1 = ($leng-$pos)+1;
     $this->tree = substr($this->tree, 0, -$pos1);
   return true;}

   /************
   * get_data: this is the
   * parser
   ************/
       function get_data
       ($doc,$st_el='startElement',
       $end_el='endElement',
       $c_data='characterData') {
       $this->mioparser = xml_parser_create();
       xml_set_object($this->mioparser, &$this);
       xml_set_element_handler
       ($this->mioparser, $st_el,$end_el);
       xml_set_character_data_handler
       ($this->mioparser,$c_data);
       xml_parser_set_option
       ($this->mioparser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, false);
       xml_parse($this->mioparser,$doc);
       if (xml_get_error_code($this->mioparser)):
         print "<b>XML error at line n. ".
         xml_get_current_line_number
         ($this->mioparser)." -</b> ";
         print xml_error_string
           (xml_get_error_code($this->mioparser));
       endif;
   return true; }

   function xmlread($doc) {
       $xml = file_get_contents('document.xml');
       $this->get_data($xml);
   return true; }

  }  //end of class
 
  ?>
David Kendal.
25-Nov-2003 09:52
In regard to this, it is NOT possible to express the Contents of an XML tag in a Formatted way.
chris at hitcatcher dot com
07-Nov-2003 10:48
In regards to jon at gettys dot org's XML object, The data should be TRIM()ed to remove any whitespace that could appear in CDATA entered as :

<xml_tag>
   cdata here. cdata here. cdata here. cdata here.
</xml_tag>

So, after applying fred at barron dot com's suggested change to the characterData function, the function should appear as:

function characterData($parser, $data)
{
   global $obj;
   $data = addslashes($data);
   eval($obj->tree."->data.='".trim($data)."';");
}

SIDE NOTE: I'm fairly new to XML so perhaps it is considered bad form to enter CDATA as I did in my example. Is this true or is the extra whitespace for the sake of readablity acceptable?
stefan dot schlesinger at chello dot at
02-Sep-2003 09:46
Luis Argerich released a collection of a few awesome php xml classes, which will help developers handling with xml in php.
here is a link:

regards, stefan.
ml at csite dot com
02-Jul-2003 03:29
A fix for the fread breaking thing:

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {

   $data = $cache . $data;

   if (!feof($fp)) {
       if (preg_match_all("(</?[a-z0-9A-Z]+>)", $data, $regs)) {
           $lastTagname = $regs[0][count($regs[0])-1];
           $split = false;
           for ($i=strlen($data)-strlen($lastTagname); $i>=strlen($lastTagname); $i--) {
               if ($lastTagname == substr($data, $i, strlen($lastTagname))) {
                   $cache = substr($data, $i, strlen($data));
                   $data = substr($data, 0, $i);
                   $split = true;
                   break;
               }
           }
       }
       if (!$split) {
           $cache = $data;
       }
   }

   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d", xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)), xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}
panania at 3ringwebs dot com
20-May-2003 10:12
The above example doesn't work when you're parsing a string being returned from a curl operation (why I don't know!) I kept getting undefined offsets at the highest element number in both the start and end element functions. It wasn't the string itself I know, because I substringed it to death with the same results. But I fixed the problem by adding these lines of code...

function defaultHandler($parser, $name) {
   global $depth;
@    $depth[$parser]--;
}

xml_set_default_handler($xml_parser, "defaultHandler");

Hope this helps 8-}
fred at barron dot com
23-Apr-2003 12:28
regarding jon at gettys dot org's nice XML to Object code, I've made some useful changes (IMHO) to the characterData function... my minor modifications allow multiple lines of data and it escapes quotes so errors don't occur in the eval...

function characterData($parser, $data)
{
   global $obj;
   $data = addslashes($data);
   eval($obj->tree."->data.='".$data."';");
}
software at serv-a-com dot com
17-Feb-2003 05:10
2. Pre Parser Strings and New Line Delimited Data
One important thing to note at this point is that the xml_parse function requires a string variable. You can manipulate the content of any string variable easily as we all know.

A better approach to removing newlines than:
while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
$data = preg_replace("/\n|\r/","",$data); //flarp
if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {...

Above works across all 3 line-delimited text files  (\n, \r, \r\n). But this could potentially (or will most likely) damage or scramble data contained in for example CDATA areas. As far as I am concerned end of line characters should not be used _within_ XML tags. What seems to be the ultimate solution is to pre-parse the loaded data this would require checking the position within the XML document and adding or subtracting (using a in-between fread temporary variable) data based on conditions like: "Is within tag", "Is within CDATA" etc. before fedding it to the parser. This of course opens up a new can of worms (as in parse data for the parser...). (above procedure would take place between fread and xml_parser calls this method would be compatible with the general usage examples on top of the page)

3. The Answer to parsing arbitrary XML and Preprocessor Revisited
You can't just feed any XML document to the parser you constructed and assuming that it will work! You have to know what kind of methods for storing data are used, for example is there a end of line delimited data in the  file ?, Are there any carriage returns in the tags etc... XML files come formatted in different ways some are just a one long string of characters with out any end of line markers others have newlines, carriage returns or both (Microsloth Windows). May or may not contain space and other whitespace between tags. For this reason it is important to what I call Normalize the data before feeding it to the parser. You can perform this with regular expressions or plain old str_replace and concatenation. In many cases this can be done to the file it self sometimes to string data on the fly( as shown in the example above). But I feel it is important to normalize the data before even calling the function to call xml_parse. If you have the ability to access all data before that call you can convert it to what you fell the data should have been in the first place and omit many surprises and expensive regular expression substitution (in a tight spot) while fread'ing the data.
software at serv-a-com dot com
17-Feb-2003 05:09
My previous XML post (software at serv-a-com dot com/22-Jan-2003 03:08) resulted in some of the visitors e-mailg me on the carriage return stripping issue with questions. I'll try to make the following mumble as brief and easy to understand as possible.

1. Overview of the 4096 fragmentation issue
As you know the following freads the file 4096 bytes at a time (that is 4KB) this is perhaps ok for testing expat and figuring out how things work, but it it rather dangerous in the production environment. Data may not be fully understandable due to fread fragmentation and improperly formatted due to numerous sources(formats) of data contained within (i.e. end of line delimited CDATA).

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {

Sometimes to save time one may want to load it all up into a one big variable and leave all the worries to expat. I think anything under 500 KB is ok (as long as nobody knows about it). Some may argue that larger variables are acceptable or even necessary because of the magic that take place while parsing using xml_parse. Our XML parser(expat) works and can be successfully implemented only when we know what type of XML data we are dealing with, it's average size and structure of general layout and data contained within tags. For example if the tags are followed by a line delimiter like a new line we can read it with fgets in and with minimal effort make sure that no data will be sent to the function that does not end with a end tag. But this require a fair knowledge of the file's preference for storing XML data and tags (and a bit of code between reading data and xml_parse'ing it).
hmoulding at excite dot com
16-Feb-2003 01:23
Duerst wrote that XML is not case sensitive.

I think he mispoke.

XML is case sensitive.

<TAG />

is not the same as

<Tag />

is not the same as

<tag />

In XML you have to use consistent case.
--
 Helge Moulding
 
 
duerst at w3 dot org
13-Feb-2003 12:28
"anony at mous dot com" said at on 20-Apr-2000 06:26: "Disable case folding or your code will be violating the XML 1.0 specification."

This is very true, and very important. Any script that does not use something like
  xml_parser_set_option ($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, FALSE);
immediately after every call to xml_parser_create() is in serious danger to create great confusion. I cannot understand why the default for PHP is set to casefolding, and why this option is even available in the first place. Element and attribute names in XML are NOT case sensitive, period.
software at serv-a-com dot com
22-Jan-2003 10:08
use:
while ($data = str_replace("\n","",fread($fp, 4096))){

instead of:
while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
It will save you a headache.

and in response to (simen at bleed dot no 11-Jan-2003 04:27) "If the 4096 byte buffer fills up..."
Please take better care of your data don't just shove it in to the xml_parse() check and make sure that the tags are not sliced the middle, use a temporary variable between fread and xml_parse.
simen at bleed dot no
11-Jan-2003 11:27
I was experiencing really wierd behaviour loading a large XML document (91k) since the buffer of 4096, when reading the file actually doesn't take into consideration the following:

<node>this is my value</node>

If the 4096 byte buffer fills up at "my", you will get a split string into your xml_set_character_data_handler().

The only solution I've found so far is to read the whole document into a variable and then parse.
j dot h dot wester at planet dot nl
04-Jan-2003 12:20
It looks like that, If 'xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1)' is set, even newlines between '<![CDATA[' and ']]>' are skipped.
mreilly at ZEROSPAM dot MAC dot COM
14-Nov-2002 06:01
I wanted a way to reference the XML tree by path. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, but using examples here and on phpbuilder.com came up with this. This results in a nested associative array, so elements can be accessed in the manner:

echo $ary_parsed_file['path']['to']['value'];

<?php

// Display the print_r() output in a readable format
echo '<PRE>';

// Array to store current xml path
$ary_path = array();

// Array to store parsed data
$ary_parsed_file = array();

// Starting level - Set to 0 to display all levels. Set to 1 or higher
// to skip a level that is common to all the fields.
$int_starting_level = 1;

// what are we parsing?
$xml_file = 'label.xml';

// declare the character set - UTF-8 is the default
$type = 'UTF-8';

// create our parser
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create($type);

// set some parser options
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, true);
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser, XML_OPTION_TARGET_ENCODING, 'UTF-8');

// this tells PHP what functions to call when it finds an element
// these funcitons also handle the element's attributes
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, 'startElement','endElement');

// this tells PHP what function to use on the character data
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, 'characterData');

if (!($fp = fopen($xml_file, 'r'))) {
   die("Could not open $xml_file for parsing!\n");
}

// loop through the file and parse baby!
while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   if (!($data = utf8_encode($data))) {
       echo 'ERROR'."\n";
   }
   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf( "XML error: %s at line %d\n\n",
       xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
       xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}

xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

// Display the array
print_r($ary_parsed_file);

// This function is called for every opening XML tag. We
// need to keep track of our path in the XML file, so we
// will use this function to add the tag name to an array
function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs=''){

   // Make sure we can access the path array
   global $ary_path;
  
   // Push the tag into the array
   array_push($ary_path, $name);

   }

// This function is called for every closing XML tag. We
// need to keep track of our path in the XML file, so we
// will use this function to remove the last item of the array.
function endElement($parser, $name, $attrs=''){

   // Make sure we can access the path array
   global $ary_path;
  
   // Push the tag into the array
   array_pop($ary_path);

   }

// This function is called for every data portion found between
// opening and closing tags. We will use it to insert values
// into the array.
function characterData($parser, $data){
  
   // Make sure we can access the path and parsed file arrays
   // and the starting level value
   global $ary_parsed_file, $ary_path, $int_starting_level;

   // Remove extra white space from the data (so we can tell if it's empty)
   $str_trimmed_data = trim($data);
  
   // Since this function gets called whether there is text data or not,
   // we need to prevent it from being called when there is no text data
   // or it overwrites previous legitimate data.
   if (!empty($str_trimmed_data)) {

       // Build the array definition string
       $str_array_define = '$ary_parsed_file';
              
       // Add a [''] and data for each level. (Starting level can be defined.)
       for ($i = $int_starting_level; $i < count($ary_path); $i++) {
      
           $str_array_define .= '[\'' . $ary_path[$i] . '\']';
          
           }
      
       // Add the value portion of the statement
       $str_array_define .= " = '" . $str_trimmed_data . "';";
      
       // Evaluate the statement we just created
       eval($str_array_define);
      
       // DEBUG
       //echo "\n" . $str_array_define;
      
       } // if

   }

?>
sfaulkner at hoovers dot com
04-Nov-2002 08:29
Building on... This allows you to return the value of an element using an XPath reference.  This code would of course need error handling added :-)

 function GetElementByName ($xml, $start, $end) {
   $startpos = strpos($xml, $start);
   if ($startpos === false) {
     return false;
   }
   $endpos = strpos($xml, $end);
   $endpos = $endpos+strlen($end);   
   $endpos = $endpos-$startpos;
   $endpos = $endpos - strlen($end);
   $tag = substr ($xml, $startpos, $endpos);
   $tag = substr ($tag, strlen($start));
   return $tag;
 }
 
 function XPathValue($XPath,$XML) {
   $XPathArray = explode("/",$XPath);
   $node = $XML;
   while (list($key,$value) = each($XPathArray)) {
     $node = GetElementByName($node, "<$value>", "</$value>");
   }
  
   return $node;
 }
 
  print XPathValue("Response/Shipment/TotalCharges/Value",$xml);
guy at bhaktiandvedanta dot com
27-Sep-2002 07:01
For a simple XML parser you can use this function. It doesn't require any extensions to run.

<?
// Extracts content from XML tag

function GetElementByName ($xml, $start, $end) {

   global $pos;
   $startpos = strpos($xml, $start);
   if ($startpos === false) {
       return false;
   }
   $endpos = strpos($xml, $end);
   $endpos = $endpos+strlen($end);   
   $pos = $endpos;
   $endpos = $endpos-$startpos;
   $endpos = $endpos - strlen($end);
   $tag = substr ($xml, $startpos, $endpos);
   $tag = substr ($tag, strlen($start));

   return $tag;

}

// Open and read xml file. You can replace this with your xml data.

$file = "data.xml";
$pos = 0;
$Nodes = array();

if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}
while ($getline = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   $data = $data . $getline;
}

$count = 0;
$pos = 0;

// Goes throw XML file and creates an array of all <XML_TAG> tags.
while ($node = GetElementByName($data, "<XML_TAG>", "</XML_TAG>")) {
   $Nodes[$count] = $node;
   $count++;
   $data = substr($data, $pos);
}

// Gets infomation from tag siblings.
for ($i=0; $i<$count; $i++) {
$code = GetElementByName($Nodes[$i], "<Code>", "</Code>");
$desc = GetElementByName($Nodes[$i], "<Description>", "</Description>");
$price = GetElementByName($Nodes[$i], "<BasePrice>", "</BasePrice>");
}
?>

Hope this helps! :)
Guy Laor
dmarsh dot NO dot SPAM dot PLEASE at spscc dot ctc dot edu
18-Sep-2002 07:27
Some reference code I am working on as "XML Library" of which I am folding it info an object. Notice the use of the DEFINE:

Mainly Example 1 and parts of 2 & 3 re-written as an object:
--- MyXMLWalk.lib.php ---
<?php

if (!defined("PHPXMLWalk")) {
define("PHPXMLWalk",TRUE);

class XMLWalk {
 var $p; //short for xml parser;
 var $e; //short for element stack/array

  function prl($x,$i=0) {
   ob_start();
   print_r($x);
   $buf=ob_get_contents();
   ob_end_clean();
   return join("\n".str_repeat(" ",$i),split("\n",$buf));
  }

 function XMLWalk() {
  $this->p = xml_parser_create();
  $this->e = array();
  xml_parser_set_option($this->p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, true);
  xml_set_element_handler($this->p, array(&$this, "startElement"), array(&$this, "endElement"));
  xml_set_character_data_handler($this->p, array(&$this, "dataElement"));
  register_shutdown_function(array(&$this, "free")); // make a destructor
  }

  function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
   if (count($attrs)>=1) {
     $x = $this->prl($attrs, $this->e[$parser]+6);
   } else {
     $x = "";
   }

   print str_repeat(" ",$this->e[$parser]+0). "$name $x\n";
   $this->e[$parser]++;
   $this->e[$parser]++;
  }

  function dataElement($parser, $data) {
   print str_repeat(" ",$this->e[$parser]+0). htmlspecialchars($data, ENT_QUOTES) ."\n";
  }

  function endElement($parser, $name) {
   $this->e[$parser]--;
   $this->e[$parser]--;
  }
  function parse($data, $fp) {
   if (!xml_parse($this->p, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
                   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($this->p)),
                   xml_get_current_line_number($this->p)));
   }
  }

  function free() {
   xml_parser_free($this->p);
  }

} // end of class

} // end of define

?>

--- end of file ---

Calling code:
<?php

...

require("MyXMLWalk.lib.php");

$file = "x.xml";

$xme = new XMLWalk;

if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
  $xme->parse($data, $fp);
}

...
?>
jon at gettys dot org
14-Aug-2002 08:59
[Editor's note: see also xml_parse_into_struct().]

Very simple routine to convert an XML file into a PHP structure. $obj->xml contains the resulting PHP structure. I would be interested if someone could suggest a cleaner method than the evals I am using.

<?
$filename = 'sample.xml';
$obj->tree = '$obj->xml';
$obj->xml = '';

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
   global $obj;
  
   // If var already defined, make array
   eval('$test=isset('.$obj->tree.'->'.$name.');');
   if ($test) {
     eval('$tmp='.$obj->tree.'->'.$name.';');
     eval('$arr=is_array('.$obj->tree.'->'.$name.');');
     if (!$arr) {
       eval('unset('.$obj->tree.'->'.$name.');');
       eval($obj->tree.'->'.$name.'[0]=$tmp;');
       $cnt = 1;
     }
     else {
       eval('$cnt=count('.$obj->tree.'->'.$name.');');
     }
    
     $obj->tree .= '->'.$name."[$cnt]";
   }
   else {
     $obj->tree .= '->'.$name;
   }
   if (count($attrs)) {
       eval($obj->tree.'->attr=$attrs;');
   }
}

function endElement($parser, $name) {
   global $obj;
   // Strip off last ->
   for($a=strlen($obj->tree);$a>0;$a--) {
       if (substr($obj->tree, $a, 2) == '->') {
           $obj->tree = substr($obj->tree, 0, $a);
           break;
       }
   }
}

function characterData($parser, $data) {
   global $obj;

   eval($obj->tree.'->data=\''.$data.'\';');
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
if (!($fp = fopen($filename, "r"))) {
   die("could not open XML input");
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
   if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
       die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
                   xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
                   xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
   }
}
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
print_r($obj->xml);
return 0;

?>
danielc at analysisandsolutions dot com
15-Apr-2002 09:23
I put up a good, simple, real world example of how to parse XML documents. While the sample grabs stock quotes off of the web, you can tweak it to do whatever you need.
jason at N0SPAM dot projectexpanse dot com
22-Mar-2002 09:16
In reference to the note made by [email protected] about parsing entities:

I could be wrong, but since it is possible to define your own entities within an XML DTD, the cdata handler function parses these individually to allow for your own implementation of those entities within your cdata handler.
jason at NOSPAM_projectexpanse_NOSPAM dot com
27-Feb-2002 12:11
For newbies wanting a good tutorial on how to actually get started and where to go from this listing of functions, then visit:


It shows an excellent example of how to read the XML data into a class file so you can actually process it, not just display it all pretty-like, like many tutorials on PHP/XML seem to be doing.
hans dot schneider at bbdo-interone dot de
24-Jan-2002 04:43
I had to TRIM the data when I passed one large String containig a wellformed XML-File to xml_parse. The String was read by CURL, which aparently put a BLANK at the end of the String. This BLANK produced a "XML not wellformed"-Error in xml_parse!
zher at operamail dot com
31-Mar-2001 01:35
Excellent IMHO XPath library for XML manipulation.  Doesn't requires the XML libraries to be installed.<br>Take a look:
morgan_rogers at yahoo dot com
06-Oct-2000 08:37
There's a really good article on XML parsing with PHP at
sam at cwa dot co dot nz
28-Sep-2000 02:39
I've discovered some unusual behaviour in this API when ampersand entities are parsed in cdata; for some reason the parser breaks up the section around the entities, and calls the handler repeated times for each of the sections. If you don't allow for this oddity and you are trying to put the cdata into a variable, only the last part will be stored.

You can get around this with a line like:

$foo .= $cdata;

If the handler is called several times from the same tag, it will append them, rather than rewriting the variable each time. If the entire cdata section is returned, it doesn't matter.

May happen for other entities, but I haven't investigated.

Took me a while to figure out what was happening; hope this saves someone else the trouble.
Daniel dot Rendall at btinternet dot com
07-Jul-1999 05:21
When using the XML parser, make sure you're not using the magic quotes option (e.g. use set_magic_quotes_runtime(0) if it's not the compiled default), otherwise you'll get 'not well-formed' errors when dealing with tags with attributes set in them.
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