php simplexml get a specific item based on the value of a field

Question

Is there a way i can get a specific item with SimpleXML ?

For example, i would like to get the title of an item having ID set to 12437 with this example xml :

<items>
  <item>
    <title>blah blah 43534</title>
    <id>43534</id>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>blah blah 12437</title>
    <id>12437</id>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>blah blah 7868</title>
    <id>7868</id>
  </item>
</items>

Answer 1

Here are 2 simple ways of doing what you want, one is iterating with each item like this:

<?php
$str = <<<XML
<items>
<item>
<title>blah blah 43534</title>
<id>43534</id>
</item>
<item>
<title>blah blah 12437</title>
<id>12437</id>
</item>
<item>
<title>blah blah 7868</title>
<id>7868</id>
</item>
</items>
XML;

$data = new SimpleXMLElement($str);
foreach ($data->item as $item)
{
    if ($item->id == 12437)
    {
        echo "ID: " . $item->id . "\n";
        echo "Title: " . $item->title . "\n";
    }
}

Live DEMO.

The other would be using an XPath, to pin point the exact data you want like this:

<?php
$str = <<<XML
<items>
<item>
<title>blah blah 43534</title>
<id>43534</id>
</item>
<item>
<title>blah blah 12437</title>
<id>12437</id>
</item>
<item>
<title>blah blah 7868</title>
<id>7868</id>
</item>
</items>
XML;

$data = new SimpleXMLElement($str);
// Here we find the element id = 12437 and get it's parent
$nodes = $data->xpath('//items/item/id[.="12437"]/parent::*');
$result = $nodes[0];
echo "ID: " . $result->id . "\n";
echo "Title: " . $result->title . "\n";

Live DEMO.