SimpleXMLElement get non-attribute values - php

Question

I have the following SimpleXMLElement:
object(SimpleXMLElement)#10 (3) {
["#attributes"]=> array(3) {
["id"]=> string(8) "18022352"
["name"]=> string(14) "The Salmon Man"
["slug"]=> string(14) "the-salmon-man"
}
["bids"]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#11 (1) {
["price"]=> array(1) {
[0]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#13 (1) {
["#attributes"]=> array(4) {
["decimal"]=> string(4) "9.60"
["percent"]=> string(5) "10.42"
["backers_stake"]=> string(5) "40.36"
["liability"]=> string(6) "347.00"
}
}
}
}
["offers"]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#12 (1) {
["price"]=> array(1) {
[0]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#15 (1) {
["#attributes"]=> array(4) {
["decimal"]=> string(4) "9.20"
["percent"]=> string(5) "10.87"
["backers_stake"]=> string(5) "85.35"
["liability"]=> string(5) "10.41"
}
}
}
}
}
Why does this work:
$horse[0]['name']
but this doesn't:
$horse[0]['bids'] // also tried $horse['bids'] and other ways
I can get the values like below but I was hoping to search the smaller object:
$xml->xpath("//odds/event[#id='$matchid']/market[#slug='to-win']/contract[#name='$pony']/bids"); // $pony == $horse[0]['name']

Answer 1

It's often easier to look at the XML itself, rather than a print_r of the SimpleXML object. In this case, you have something like this:
<horse id="18022352" name="The Salmon Man" slug="the-salmon-man">
<bids>
<price decimal="9.60" percent="10.42" backers_stake="40.36" liability="347.00" />
</bids>
<offers>
<price decimal="9.60" percent="10.42" backers_stake="40.36" liability="347.00" />
</offers>
</horse>
The bids item is an element, and as discussed in the SimpleXML Basic Usage guide, you access child elements with ->foo notation, whereas attributes use ['foo'] notation.
So if $horse is that <horse> element, you need:
$name = $horse['name'];
$bids = $horse->bids;
Note that this is equivalent to explicitly asking for the first child called bids; both forms will work regardless of whether there is actually more than one identically name element:
$bids = $horse->bids[0];
Now there are presumably one or more <price> elements in practice, so you might want to loop over, and then echo each decimal attribute. That would look like this:
foreach ( $horse->bids->price as $price ) {
echo $price['decimal'];
}
Again, this loop will work fine with only one <price>, it will just just loop once. If there is only ever one price, or you only care about the first one, you could just write:
echo $horse->bids->price['decimal'];
Which is equivalent to:
echo $horse->bids[0]->price[0]['decimal'];
Or of course either of these:
echo $horse->bids[0]->price['decimal'];
echo $horse->bids->price[0]['decimal'];
The number of different ways of getting to the same place is one reason I don't recommend relying too much on print_r output. Another is that it sometimes can't display everything that's in the XML, which doesn't mean that data isn't available if you ask for it.