PHP XML: How To Get The NodeValue by Its Siblings?

Question

Example of the xml:

<books>
  <book>
    <title>Hip Hop Hippo</title>
    <released>31-12-9999</released>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title>Bee In A Jar</title>
    <released>01-01-0001</released>
  </book>
</books>

I want to make a function that return the released date of a book title. Ex: I want to get released date of the 'Hip Hop Hippo' book.

I know I can use simplexml and write ->book[0]->released. But that's only works when I have a static XML and I know where the ->book[$i]->title that match 'Hip Hop Hippo'. But not in dynamic case. I can't predict every changes, since it came from an API provider. It can be book[1], book[2], and so on.

What should I write in my function?

Scuzzy · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-02 06:11:57Z

3

Check out the xpath functions http://php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.xpath.php

You will then be able to write a query like: /books/book[title="Hip Hop Hippo"]

$string = <<<XML
<books>
  <book>
    <title>Hip Hop Hippo</title>
    <released>31-12-9999</released>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title>Hip Hop Hippo</title>
    <released>31-12-2000</released>
  </book>
  <book>
    <title>Bee In A Jar</title>
    <released>01-01-0001</released>
  </book>
</books>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);

$result = $xml->xpath('/books/book[title="Hip Hop Hippo"]');

foreach($result as $key=>$node)
{
  echo '<li>';
  echo $node->title . ' / ' . $node->released;
  echo '</li>';
}

edited Sep 2, 2011 at 6:11

answered Sep 2, 2011 at 6:05

Scuzzy

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3 Comments

Dimas Putra Over a year ago

Thanks! I've heard that function. But in the php manual, it doesn't explain what operators I can use in the bracket, like @, ., etc. Can you explain or link the explanation?

Scuzzy Over a year ago

@ is for attributes values, the "." denotes current context and "../" can be used to recurse back up the xml tree eg //title[../released=""], double fowrad slash will start anywhere within the XML tree where single starting slash is from root

Dimas Putra Over a year ago

How about * and ::? Oh, and I see a comment in the php manual use conditional function like [. > '40']. So much xpath query that I don't know.

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