Why SimpleXML_load_file Returning Blank Output?

Question

Not wasting a second, check out this code:

$gp=$_GET["gp"];

function googleplus($gp) {
$furl = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=SELECT * from html where url='https://plus.google.com/%252B".$gp."' AND xpath=\"//div[@class='Nn']//div[@class='rw Uc']//div[@class='Zi']//div[@class='V9b nhe']//div[@class='tQE8Kd BnqoOb']//div[@class='Qhb eZa']//div[@class='vkb']//p\"&format=xml";
$api = simplexml_load_file($furl);
$followers = $api->results->p;
return $followers;
}

Okay. When I do

<?php echo googleplus($gp); ?>

with parameter gp=mehulmohan in the URL, it should return something like this:

539 have him in circles

Check this URL associated with mehulmohan

http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=SELECT%20*%20from%20html%20where%20url=%27https://plus.google.com/%252Bmehulmohan%27AND%20xpath=%22//div[@class=%27Nn%27]//div[@class=%27rw%20Uc%27]//div[@class=%27Zi%27]//div[@class=%27V9b%20nhe%27]//div[@class=%27tQE8Kd%20BnqoOb%27]//div[@class=%27Qhb%20eZa%27]//div[@class=%27vkb%27]//p%22&format=xml

But actually, it returns blank. Why?

Please help. All other social media like pinterest and twitter are returning correct results but Google+ returns blank.

Point to note: I've parsed the "+" symbol 2 times in the URL as in 1 time, it is not accepting the XML but second time it takes.

"+" = %2B = %252B

Amal · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-29 07:03:09Z

1

Encode the characters in the URL properly using urlencode(). And remember to always cast SimpleXML objects to string. The updated function would look like:

function googleplus($gp) {
    $furl = "http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=SELECT * from html where url='https://plus.google.com/%252B".$gp."' AND xpath=\"//div[@class='Nn']//div[@class='rw Uc']//div[@class='Zi']//div[@class='V9b nhe']//div[@class='tQE8Kd BnqoOb']//div[@class='Qhb eZa']//div[@class='vkb']//p\"&format=xml";
    $api = simplexml_load_file(urlencode($furl));
    $followers = (string) $api->results->p;
    return $followers;
}

answered Mar 29, 2014 at 7:03

Amal

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2 Comments

mehulmpt Over a year ago

Stackoverflow is saying that You can't accept an answer in 8 minutes. I'll accept your answer as best when this limit is removed. Well, could you tell me what urlencode is doing over there? Thanks again!

Amal Over a year ago

@MehulMohan: Since URLs often contain characters outside the ASCII set, the URL has to be converted into a valid ASCII format. URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a % followed by two hexadecimal digits. In this case, urlencode() replaces all spaces with + sign. See this demo to see how the URL looks like after applying urlencode().

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