DOM XML: An Alternative to Expat - Page 5

by: Matt Dunford

December 27, 2000

A Longer Example

Here is a longer example of how to extract info from an xml doc. For example, we have a file called employees.xml containing employee entries.

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<employees company="zoomedia.com">
	<employee>
		<name>Matt</name>
		<position type="contract">Web Guy</position>
	</employee>

	<employee>
		<name>George</name>
		<position type="full time">Mad Hacker</position>
	</employee>

	<employee>
		<name>Wookie</name>
		<position type="part time">Hairy SysAdmin</position>
	</employee>
</employees>

Here's how you would extract this info in your php script.




<?php



# iterate through an array of nodes

# looking for a text node

# return its content

function get_content($parent)

{

    $nodes = $parent->children();

    while($node = array_shift($nodes))

        if ($node->type == XML_TEXT_NODE)

            return $node->content;

    return "";

}



# get the content of a particular node

function find_content($parent,$name)

{

    $nodes = $parent->children();

    while($node = array_shift($nodes))

        if ($node->name == $name)

            return get_content($node);

    return "";

}



# get an attribute from a particular node

function find_attr($parent,$name,$attr)

{

    $nodes = $parent->children();

    while($node = array_shift($nodes))

        if ($node->name == $name)

            return $node->getattr($attr);

    return "";

}



# load xml doc

$doc = xmldocfile("employees.xml") or die("What employees?");



# get root Node (employees)

$root = $doc->root();



# get an array of employees' children

# that is each employee node

$employees = $root->children();



# shift through the array 

# and print out some employee data

while($employee = array_shift($employees))

{

    if ($employee->type == XML_TEXT_NODE)

        continue;



    $name = find_content($employee,"name");

    $pos = find_content($employee,"position");

    $type = find_attr($employee,"position","type");



    echo "$name the $pos, $type employee<br>";

}



?>

You should see the following in your browser.

Matt the Web Guy, contract employee
George the Mad Hacker, full time employee
Wookie the Hairy SysAdmin, part time employee

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