Process XML item with delimited values into PHP array - php

Question

I am trying to process an XML item into a PHP array and simply return it.
However, I am getting "Array to string conversion" as an error on line 3.
PHP Code
function processPlayers($players) { // paramater is the XML item
$playerGUIDS = array();
$playerGUIDArray = explode(";", $players); // CREATE ARRAY FROM STRING WHICH HAVE A ; DELIMINATER
foreach($playerGUIDArray as $player) {
$playerGUIDS[] = $player;
}
return $playerGUIDS;
}
XML Item
<playguid>DC242003;BY523643</playguid>
I am using WP ALL Import as a plugin so I specify my custom field data value as
[processPlayers({playguid[1]})]
See here:
http://www.wpallimport.com/2015/10/wp-all-export-1-1-1-function-editor/
http://www.wpallimport.com/documentation/advanced/execute-php/
My ideal output is below (this is the form of metadata in a WordPress DB).
a:2:{i:0;s:8:"JC745819";i:1;s:8:"JB705789";}

Answer 1

You got error, because WPAllImport try insert this value into database. So, you must return in function string value, not array. In your case, serialized:
function processPlayers($players) {
return serialize(explode(";", $players));
}

Answer 2

I just encountered a closely related case in parsing multiple XML items as an array. As this is one of the highest ranking search results on the topic, I thought the following might help someone else:
WP All Import does not pass an array value to your custom PHP function. If your input element is not a string, but e.g. a list of XML child elements, then WP All Import will pass an empty string if you try to do the following:
<parents>
<parent>...</parent>
<parent>...</parent>
<parent>...</parent>
...
</parents>
[IF(has_special_children({parents[1]}))]
<h2>My Conditional Header</h2>
{parents[1]/parent[8]}
{parents[1]/parent[12]}
{parents[1]/parent[13]}
[ENDIF]
<?php
function has_special_children($parent) {
var_dump(gettype($parent)); // outputs: string
var_dump($parent); // outputs: string ""
return $parent[8] || $parent[12] || $parent[13];
}
?>
In the PHP function, $parent is always an empty string when passing an XML element that has children.
Solution
You can use a variadic function in PHP to pass the elements of interest and check them individually instead:
[IF(wpai_has_any_value({parents[1]/parent[8]}, {parents[1]/parent[12]}, {parents[1]/parent[13]}))]
<h2>My Conditional Header</h2>
{parents[1]/parent[8]}
{parents[1]/parent[12]}
{parents[1]/parent[13]}
[ENDIF]
<?php
function wpai_has_any_value(...$values) {
return (bool) array_filter($values);
}
?>