How to search in XML? (PHP) - php

Question

I am working on a word application. I'm trying to get values from XML. My goal is getting the first and last letter of a word. Could you help me, please?
<!--?xml version='1.0'?-->
<Letters>
<Letter category='A'>
<FirstLetter>
<Property>First letter is A.</Property>
</FirstLetter>
<LastLetter>
<Property>Last letter is A.</Property>
</LastLetter>
</Letter>
<Letter category='B'>
<FirstLetter>
<Property>First letter is B.</Property>
</FirstLetter>
<LastLetter>
<Property>Last letter is B.</Property>
</LastLetter>
</Letter>
<Letter category='E'>
<FirstLetter>
<Property>First letter is E.</Property>
</FirstLetter>
<LastLetter>
<Property>Last letter is E.</Property>
</LastLetter>
</Letter>
</Letters>
PHP code:
<?php
$word = "APPLE";
$alphabet = "ABCÇDEFGĞHIİJKLMNOÖPQRSŞTUÜVWXYZ";
$index = strpos($alphabet, $word);
$string = $xml->xpath("//Letters/Letter[contains(text(), " . $alfabe[$rakam] . ")]/FirstLetter");
echo "<pre>" . print_r($string, true) . "</pre>";

Answer 1

The letter is in an attribute named 'category'.
$word = "APPLE";
// bootstrap DOM
$document = new DOMDocument();
$document->loadXML($xml);
$xpath = new DOMXpath($document);
// get first and last letter
$firstLetter = substr($word, 0, 1);
$lastLetter = substr($word, -1);
// fetch text from property elements
var_dump(
$xpath->evaluate(
"string(/Letters/Letter[#category = '$firstLetter']/FirstLetter/Property)"
),
$xpath->evaluate(
"string(/Letters/Letter[#category = '$lastLetter']/LastLetter/Property)"
)
);
Or in SimpleXML
$word = "APPLE";
$letters = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
$firstLetter = substr($word, 0, 1);
$lastLetter = substr($word, -1);
// SimpleXML does not allow for xpath expression with type casts
// So validation and cast has to be done in PHP
var_dump(
(string)($letters->xpath(
"/Letters/Letter[#category = '$firstLetter']/FirstLetter/Property"
)[0] ?? ''),
(string)($letters->xpath(
"/Letters/Letter[#category = '$lastLetter']/LastLetter/Property"
)[0] ?? '')
);