How do I add children to a newly created XML node using PHP

Question

I am trying to add children to a newly created node using addChild() of simpleXml but it gives me an exception:

Warning: SimpleXMLElement::addChild()[simlexmlelement.addchild]: Cannot add child. Parent is not a permanent member of the XML tree in (file address) on line (line number)

And I got that multiple times, since the significant part of my code is:

<?php

  $xml = simplexml_load_file(".db.xml") or die("Sorry, no database file found, we will solve it as soon as possible.");

  if($xml->$name->getName() == $name) {
    echo "We're sorry, but this account name already exists. Underneath is a table with your signup data anyways. We also sent you an email if you are going to retry later.";
  } else {
    $xml->db->addChild($name);
    $xml->$name->addChild("email", $email);
    $xml->$name->addChild("day", $day);
    $xml->$name->addChild("month", $month);
    $xml->$name->addChild("year", $year);
  }
?>

And this is my prettified XML code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<body>
  <db>
    <example>
      <email>[email protected]</email>
      <day>01</day>
      <month>01</month>
      <year>1975</year>
    </example>
  </db>
</body>

What am I doing wrong here?

Note:

I know that the values of the variables are not the problem because all variables show the right values in the table of data that I made for the page.

Paul G Mihai · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-07 20:16:18Z

1

You should add the children to a reference like so:

$nametag = $xml->db->addChild($name);
$nametag->addChild("email", $email);
$nametag->addChild("day", $day);
$nametag->addChild("month", $month);
$nametag->addChild("year", $year);

Read more here: http://php.net/manual/ro/simplexmlelement.addchild.php

example nr.1

Update

Here the code I tested with output so you can see it actually adds the tags to the final xml structure:

$xml = simplexml_load_file("db.xml") or die("Sorry, no database file found, we will solve it as soon as possible.");
$name = "a";
$email = "b";
$day = "c";
$month = "d";
$year = "e";
if($xml->$name->getName() == $name) {
    echo "We're sorry, but this account name already exists. Underneath is a table with your signup data anyways. We also sent you an email if you are going to retry later.";
} else {
    $tagname = $xml->db->addChild($name);
    $tagname->addChild("email", $email);
    $tagname->addChild("day", $day);
    $tagname->addChild("month", $month);
    $tagname->addChild("year", $year);
}
var_dump($xml->asXML());

Update 2

To save the xml to a file add at the end:

$xml->asXML("db.xml"); // this would overwrite your old file

Check this out here: http://php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.asxml.php

edited Apr 7, 2018 at 20:16

answered Apr 7, 2018 at 19:35

Paul G Mihai

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3 Comments

Paul G Mihai Over a year ago

I just tested it and I don't get an error. I have not persisted the xml to check if it indeed saves it but it doesn't yield an error. What is the error you get doing it like this?

Yannick Mackor Over a year ago

It's true that there are no errors, but it's not uploaded to the file. Any idea how to solve that?

Paul G Mihai Over a year ago

you can just add: $xml->asXML("db.xml"); at the end

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