Manipulation of XML in PHP

Question

I have an API call which returns a XML string, I have converted that response with new SimpleXmlElement so that it returns me a XML object. Below is the result

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [0] => <root>
                <PINCODELIST>
                    <PINCODE>152001</PINCODE>
                    <CITYNAME>GURDASPUR</CITYNAME>
                    <ACTIVEFLAG>Y</ACTIVEFLAG>
                    <EDIT_DATE>09 May 2015 10:47:20</EDIT_DATE>
                    <ROUTINGCODE>N/PB/1026/FRZPR</ROUTINGCODE>
                </PINCODELIST>
            </root>
)

How do I access each element in root tag assuming it can have X number of PINCODELIST tags.

I tried $res[0]->root but it gaves me SimpleXMLElement Object ( )

Any ideas ?

Answer 1

I can't comment on SimpleXmlElement or the associated methods but using the standard DOMDocument is fairly straightforward. It takes a string as input, though can easily be modifed to load an XML file if preferred.

/* helper function to return the value of a node */
function gnv( $node,$tag ){
    return $node->getElementsByTagName( $tag )->item(0)->nodeValue;
}

$data="
    <root>
        <PINCODELIST>
            <PINCODE>152001</PINCODE>
            <CITYNAME>GURDASPUR</CITYNAME>
            <ACTIVEFLAG>Y</ACTIVEFLAG>
            <EDIT_DATE>09 May 2015 10:47:20</EDIT_DATE>
            <ROUTINGCODE>N/PB/1026/FRZPR</ROUTINGCODE>
        </PINCODELIST>
        <PINCODELIST>
            <PINCODE>152003</PINCODE>
            <CITYNAME>Mumbai</CITYNAME>
            <ACTIVEFLAG>N</ACTIVEFLAG>
            <EDIT_DATE>09 May 2015 11:21:20</EDIT_DATE>
            <ROUTINGCODE>O/PB/1036/FRZPR</ROUTINGCODE>
        </PINCODELIST>
    </root>";

$url='http://<SERVER>/jhds/services/ws_webx_dataexchange.asmx/PincodeSync?FromDate=&CustomerCode=CC000200115';
$data=file_get_contents( $url );


/* For storing pincodes and data */
$codes=array();

libxml_use_internal_errors( true );

$dom=new DOMDocument;
$dom->validateOnParse=false;
$dom->standalone=true;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace=true;
$dom->strictErrorChecking=false;
$dom->substituteEntities=false;
$dom->recover=true;
$dom->formatOutput=false;

/* Here you load your xml data as a string */
$dom->loadXML( html_entity_decode( $data ) );
$parse_errs=serialize( libxml_get_last_error() );

libxml_clear_errors();

$pincodes=$dom->getElementsByTagName('PINCODELIST');
foreach( $pincodes as $index => $node ) {
    if( $node->nodeType==XML_ELEMENT_NODE ){

        $codes[ gnv( $node, 'PINCODE' ) ]=(object)array(
            'CITYNAME'      =>  gnv( $node, 'CITYNAME' ),
            'ACTIVEFLAG'    =>  gnv( $node, 'ACTIVEFLAG' ),
            'EDIT_DATE'     =>  gnv( $node, 'EDIT_DATE' ),
            'ROUTINGCODE'   =>  gnv( $node, 'ROUTINGCODE' )
        );
    }
}
$dom=null;
/* debug output */
echo '<pre>',print_r($codes,true),'</pre>';

/* To access specific items by their pincode later */
echo $codes['152001']->ROUTINGCODE;