Using PHP to remove xml duplicates - php

Question

i currently have 2 XML files exactly the same structure, i want to remove the entrys (or nodes) in XMLfile1 if they exist in XMLfile2. The structure i am using is below :
XMLFile1:
<ArrivingFlights>
<flight>
<to>Ciara</to>
<from>Vikki xx</from>
<imagepath>0003.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>11:00</time>
<date>19/12/15</date>
</flight>
<flight>
<to>Eadaoin</to>
<from>Dylan xx</from>
<imagepath>0005.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>18:00</time>
<date>22/12/15</date>
</flight>
<flight>
<to>Michelle</to>
<from>Brianna xx</from>
<imagepath>0001.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>17:00</time>
<date>18/12/15</date>
</flight>
<flight>
<to>Ger</to>
<from>Mammy xx</from>
<imagepath>0002.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>08:00</time>
<date>21/12/15</date>
</flight>
</ArrivingFlights>
XMLFile2 :
<flight>
<to>Eadaoin</to>
<from>Dylan xx</from>
<imagepath>0005.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>18:00</time>
<date>22/12/15</date>
</flight>
In this example i would want to re-save file1 without the entry that you see in file2.
Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

Consider using XSLT, the special purpose language designed natively to restructure XML files. You can even reference external XML files using its document() function. Here XSL is loaded externally:
XSLT Script (save as .xsl or .xslt file)
<xsl:transform xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
<xsl:output version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>
<!-- Identity Transform -->
<xsl:template match="#*|node()">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
<!-- Matches text between files and writes empty template (i.e. removes entire node) -->
<xsl:template match="flight[. = document('OtherFile.xml')/flight]"/>
</xsl:transform>
PHP Script
// Load the XML source and XSLT file
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->load('Input.xml');
$xsl = new DOMDocument;
$xsl->load('XSLTScript.xsl');
// Configure the transformer
$proc = new XSLTProcessor;
$proc->importStyleSheet($xsl);
// Transform XML source
$newXml = $proc->transformToXML($doc);
// Save output to file
$xmlfile = 'Output.xml';
file_put_contents($xmlfile, $newXml);
Output
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ArrivingFlights>
<flight>
<to>Ciara</to>
<from>Vikki xx</from>
<imagepath>0003.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>11:00</time>
<date>19/12/15</date>
</flight>
<flight>
<to>Michelle</to>
<from>Brianna xx</from>
<imagepath>0001.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>17:00</time>
<date>18/12/15</date>
</flight>
<flight>
<to>Ger</to>
<from>Mammy xx</from>
<imagepath>0002.jpg</imagepath>
<templateStyle>template1</templateStyle>
<time>08:00</time>
<date>21/12/15</date>
</flight>
</ArrivingFlights>

Answer 2

you can also do it with Xpath query
$message = null;
$oldXml = new DOMDocument;
$oldXml->load('xm11.xml');
$option = array();
foreach ($oldXml->getElementsByTagName('flight') as $product) {
$option[] = '( to = "' . $product->getElementsByTagName('to')->item(0)->nodeValue . '" and from ="' . $product->getElementsByTagName('from')->item(0)->nodeValue . '")';//ArrivingFlights/flight[( to = "Ciara" and from ="Vikki")] your query format
}
$option = implode('or', $option);
$newXml = new DOMDocument;
$newXml->load('xml2.xml');
$xp = new DOMXPath($newXml);
$query1 = '/ArrivingFlights/flight[' . $option . ']';
echo $query1;
foreach ($xp->query($query1) as $product) {
echo $newXml->saveXML($product);//delete it
}