Changing XML source on click using PHP - php

Question

I have a simple newsfeed which is pulling from an xml file which works great. The news feed is broken down into separate XML files for each year. I want the page to show only one year at a time with links to other years above. Ideally when a new year is clicked I would like the content below to update without going to a new page.
I am trying to avoid repeating the PHP code which is parsing the XML for each year and instead would like to simply update the $dom_object->load source when the user clicks a different year.
I am a PHP newbie so some help would be appreciated!
<?php
$dom_object = new DOMDocument();
$dom_object->load("http://EXAMPLE.com/XML-Feed-10100524539?year=2013");
$item = $dom_object->getElementsByTagName("item");
foreach( $item as $value )
{
$titles = $value->getElementsByTagName("title");
$title = $titles->item(0)->nodeValue;
$pubDates = $value->getElementsByTagName("pubDate");
$pubDate = $pubDates->item(0)->nodeValue;
$pdf_urls = $value->getElementsByTagName("pdf_url");
$pdf_url = $pdf_urls->item(0)->nodeValue;
//Trims after last space - REMOVES EST
$pubDate=substr($pubDate, 0, strrpos($pubDate, ' '));
//Trims after remaining space - REMOVES TIME
$pubDate=substr($pubDate, 0, strrpos($pubDate, ' '));
$pubDater = str_replace('/', '-', $pubDate);
$newDate = DateTime::createFromFormat("m/d/Y", $pubDate);
$newDate = $newDate->format('F d, Y');
echo "<div style=\"width:33%; float:left; display:inline-block; height:150px;\"><div style=\"padding:10px;\"><h4>$newDate</h4><p>$title</p></div></div>";
}
?>

Answer 1

You would need to use ajax by using $.get or $.post so you could do something like:
$('#yourElement').click(function(){
var path = $('#path'); // for example
$.post("your/path/getXML.php", { path: path },
function (dat) {
console.log(dat);
}
);
});
Where getXML would be a file similar to this one:
$dom_object = new DOMDocument();
$dom_object->load($_POST["path"]);
$item = $dom_object->getElementsByTagName("item");
foreach( $item as $value )
{
$titles = $value->getElementsByTagName("title");
$title = $titles->item(0)->nodeValue;
$pubDates = $value->getElementsByTagName("pubDate");
$pubDate = $pubDates->item(0)->nodeValue;
$pdf_urls = $value->getElementsByTagName("pdf_url");
$pdf_url = $pdf_urls->item(0)->nodeValue;
//Trims after last space - REMOVES EST
$pubDate=substr($pubDate, 0, strrpos($pubDate, ' '));
//Trims after remaining space - REMOVES TIME
$pubDate=substr($pubDate, 0, strrpos($pubDate, ' '));
$pubDater = str_replace('/', '-', $pubDate);
$newDate = DateTime::createFromFormat("m/d/Y", $pubDate);
$newDate = $newDate->format('F d, Y');
echo "<div style=\"width:33%; float:left; display:inline-block; height:150px;\"><div style=\"padding:10px;\"><h4>$newDate</h4><p>$title</p></div></div>";