Expression Engine SimpleXmlIterator broken - php

Question

this is my first question, which I can't figure out how to make relevant to other people as per the guidelines. I suppose just a question at the end as to whether a noob should ever attempt to meddle with code they don't fully understand.
My site depends on an xml database generated elsewhere which is spliced into site-specific format, set up by the original developer. The system generating the database changed a tag from "contact" to "person", breaking the data formula for the splicing. (Grr.)
I thought I had fixed it, because I changed the tag in the receiving file, but the splicer has just stopped completely. (Basically, I don’t really know enough about the site/coding to have attempted to make these changes. But I thought I could get away with it!)
This is what I understand happens:
1. every night we send an xml file into folder
2. a php file reformats the raw xml with SimpleXmlIterator.
3. that sends the reformatted file to a staging.sql file.
4. that sends it to the right place for the site to load it nightly.
Step 4 is still happening, but the site is using the same data over and over. The new data is just not making it through step 2 and 3.
This is what I did (I just commented out the original code. I'm "SOC"):
$authors = array();
foreach ($author_array as $arr) {
$bio = ($arr['copy_biography']) ? nl2br(htmlspecialchars($arr['copy_biography'], ENT_QUOTES)) : '';
// SOC changed $author_title = $arr['contact_first_name'] .' '. $arr['contact_surname'];
$author_title = $arr['person_first_name'] .' '. $arr['person_surname'];
$authors[] = array(
'title' => $author_title,
'author_id' => $arr['id'],
// SOC changed from this to the below 'fname' => $arr['contact_first_name'],
'fname' => $arr['person_first_name'],
// SOC changed from this to the below 'lname' => $arr['contact_surname'],
'lname' => $arr['person_surname'],
// SOC ditto 'website' => $arr['contact_web_page'],
'website' => $arr['person_web_page'],
'bio' => $bio,
// SOC ditto 'twitter' => $arr['contact_fax']
'twitter' => $arr['person_fax']
);
}
$authors = generate_valid_xml_from_array($authors);
$authors_xml = '/var/www/hotkeybooks/biblio/authors_import.xml';
$authorfile = fopen($authors_xml,'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($authorfile,$authors);
fclose($authorfile);
//make the files readable
exec('chmod 444 /var/www/hotkeybooks/biblio/*.xml');
I also changed “contact” to “person” the staging.sql and the staging.tgz.
-- ----------------------------
-- Records of `exp_dd_doc_sections`
-- ----------------------------
BEGIN;
INSERT INTO `exp_dd_doc_sections` VALUES (…….<td>contact_first_name, contact_surname</td>\n <td>Text Input</td>\n <td>Would enter author full name, this field would only be used for admin purposes.</td>\n <td>y</td>\n </tr>\n <tr>\n <td>Author Biblio ID</td>\n <td>author_biblio_id</td>\n <td>id</td>\n <td>Text Input</td>\n <td>Used for relationship building and reference only</td>\n <td></td>\n </tr>\n <tr>\n <td>Author First Name</td>\n <td>author_fname</td>\n <td>contact_first_name</td>\n <td>Text Input</td>\n <td></td>\n <td></td>\n </tr>\n <tr>\n <td>Author Last Name</td>\n <td>author_lname</td>\n <td>contact_surname</td>\n <td>Text Input</td>\n <td></td>\n <td></td>\n </tr>\n ………)
Does anyone know which bit of what I did broke the system, and what I can do to restore it?
I have tried overwriting my changes with the original files, but that hasn’t helped.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Sounds like you need some basic troubleshooting.
Perhaps your parsing is working correctly but the transfer between the various locations is failing due to file permissions or something.
Working backwards:
Can you confirm that the file that is transferred in step 4 is a new file? Does it have the expected modified date? Does it have the expected data?
Can you confirm that the file in step 3 staging.sql is a new file with the expected modified date? Does it have the expected data?
Can you confirm that the file created in step 2 is a new file with the expected date and data?
Do you seeing anything in your error log to suggest that anything in the script has failed?