Retrieve text from XML? - php

Question

I want to get all words between XML tags from a array and the current outcome is:
Notice: Array to string conversion in ........ on line 84
Result is: Array
if(isset($_POST['send']))
{
echo "sync is started <br>";
$handle = fopen("XML/$file_name", "r");
if ($handle)
{
while (($line = fgets($handle)) !== false)
{
$keywords=array("series_title","series_type","series_episodes");
for ($i=0; $i < 3; $i++)
{
$pattern = "/<$keywords[$i]>(.*?)<\/keywords[$i]>/";
preg_match($pattern, $line, $matches);
echo "result is: " . $matches . "<br>";
}
}
}
else
{
$upload_text = "error";
}
$upload_text ="finished";
fclose($handle);
//unlink('XML/' . $file_name);
}

Answer 1

You should use SimpleXML to read the XML instead. Here is an example:
<?php
$string = <<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<myanimelist>
<anime>
<series_animedb_id>1143</series_animedb_id>
<series_title><![CDATA[.hack//Intermezzo]]></series_title>
<series_type>Special</series_type>
<series_episodes>1</series_episodes>
</anime>
<anime>
<series_animedb_id>299</series_animedb_id>
<series_title><![CDATA[.hack//Liminality]]></series_title>
<series_type>OVA</series_type>
<series_episodes>4</series_episodes>
</anime>
</myanimelist>
XML;
$result = simplexml_load_string($string);
foreach ($result->anime as $anime)
{
echo trim($anime->series_title), "\n";
echo $anime->series_type, "\n";
echo $anime->series_episodes, "\n";
echo "==========================\n\n";
}
Live DEMO.
In your case you would use simplexml_load_file, so your code would look like this:
<?php
$result = simplexml_load_file('your_file_path_here.xml');
foreach ($result->anime as $anime)
{
echo trim($anime->series_title), "\n";
echo $anime->series_type, "\n";
echo $anime->series_episodes, "\n";
}

Answer 2

Well, as you can read in the Official PHP Documentation, the optional preg_match third argument will be an array
matches
If matches is provided, then it is filled with the results of search.
$matches[0] will contain the text that matched the full pattern,
$matches1 will have the text that matched the first captured
parenthesized subpattern, and so on.
So simply change your :
echo "result is: " . $matches . "<br>";
to :
echo "result is: " . $matches[1] . "<br>";
Hope it helps

Answer 3

The value returned in the $matches parameter of the preg_match function is an array, the first element of which is the entire match, and the following elements are the capture groups (the parts between parentheses).
So, in your code, you'd only be interested in $matches[1]:
echo "result is: $matches[1]<br>";