Load XML into MySQL (Label and Value) - php

Question

I have an XML file to load into MySQL, but it is generated with a label and a value instead of being fully qualified.
So instead of
<book>
<name>Lord of the Flies</name>
<author>William Golding</author>
</book>
<book>
<name>War and Peace</name>
<author>Leo Tolstoy</author>
</book>
It is like
<book>
<label>name</label>
<value>Lord of the Flies</value>
<label>author</label>
<value>William Golding</value>
</book>
<book>
<label>name</label>
<value>War and Peace</value>
<label>author</label>
<value>Leo Tolstoy</value>
</book>
My code so far is -
book as $mybooks) {
$label=$mybooks->Label;
$value=$mybooks->Value;
echo "$label - $value";
}
}
?>
The output then is
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Problem is that this does not have a reference to the field name which I can use to map it in my MySQL table.
What would be the best way to go about reading these into variables to push into a MySQL table (fields - name, author) using PHP?
Thanks
Steve

Answer 1

You can access the data using...
<?php
error_reporting ( E_ALL );
ini_set ( 'display_errors', 1 );
$xml = <<< XML
<books>
<book>
<label>name</label>
<value>Lord of the Flies</value>
<label>author</label>
<value>William Golding</value>
</book>
<book>
<label>name</label>
<value>War and Peace</value>
<label>author</label>
<value>Leo Tolstoy</value>
</book>
</books>
XML;
$doc = simplexml_load_string($xml);
foreach ( $doc->book as $book ) {
echo $book->label[0]."=".$book->value[0]."\n";
echo $book->label[1]."=".$book->value[1]."\n";
}
I've wrapped the book elements into a top level XML element to make it a valid document.
This is loaded using simplexml and then the foreach simply iterates over the books.
The labels and values will be an array in each element, so label[0] is for value[0]. You can use count($book->label) to work out how many elements there are.
The above code will output...
name=Lord of the Flies
author=William Golding
name=War and Peace
author=Leo Tolstoy