Count how many children are in XML with PHP - php

Question

i know a few about php, so sorry for the question:
i have this file xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<alert>
<status> </status>
<nothing> </nothing>
<info>
<area>
</area>
</info>
<info>
<area>
</area>
</info>
<info>
<area>
</area>
</info>
</alert>
i must do a for loop and inside a "foreach" for each
The problem is that i'm not sure what is a way to know how many times i had to repeat a for loop. Because in this file xml (that is an example) i don't know how many are
Is good if:
$url = "pathfile";
$xml = simplexml_load_file($url);
$numvulcani = count($xml->alert->info); // is good ?
for ($i = 0; $i <= $numvulcani; $i++) {
foreach ($xml->alert->info[$i] as $entry) {
$area = $entry->area;
}
}
is true ?
sorry for bad english

Answer 1

You need to use SimpleXMLElement::count function for this — It counts the children of an element.
<?php
$xml = <<<EOF
<people>
<person name="Person 1">
<child/>
<child/>
<child/>
</person>
<person name="Person 2">
<child/>
<child/>
<child/>
<child/>
<child/>
</person>
</people>
EOF;
$elem = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
foreach ($elem as $person) {
printf("%s has got %d children.\n", $person['name'], $person->count());
}
?>
The output will be as follows :
Person 1 has got 3 children.
Person 2 has got 5 children.
Also take a look at this link : xml count using php

Answer 2

Try replacing foreach ($xml->alert->info[$i] as $entry) with:
foreach ($xml->alert->info[$i] as $j => $entry)
The current item index will be $j

Answer 3

You're perhaps overcomplicating this a bit as it's new to you.
First of all, you don't need to reference the alert root element like $xml->alert because the SimpleXMLElement named by the variable $xml represents that document element already.
And second, you don't need to count here, you can just foreach directly:
foreach ($xml->info as $info) {
echo ' * ', $info->asXML(), "\n";
}
This iterates over those three info elements that are children of the alert element.
I recommend the Basic SimpleXML usage guide in the PHP manual for a good start with SimpleXML.