Get next element with PHP SimpleXML - php

Question

I received a very weird XML file to process.
Instead of grouping names with group tags, like this:
<data>
<group>
<name>John</name>
<name>Mary</name>
<name>Susan</name>
</group>
<group>
<name>Cesar</name>
<name>Joseph</name>
<name>Sylvia</name>
<name>Steve</name>
</group>
</data>
It inserts a separator tag after each element, like this:
<data>
<name>John</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Mary</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Susan</name>
<separator>;</separator>
<name>Cesar</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Joseph</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Sylvia</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Steve</name>
<separator>.</separator>
</data>
";" and "." are the group delimiters. (I know, that's weird, but I can't change that and I have to process a lot of these files)
To get all names and all separators I can use the following code:
$data = <<<XML
<data>
<name>John</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Mary</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Susan</name>
<separator>;</separator>
<name>Cesar</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Joseph</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Sylvia</name>
<separator>,</separator>
<name>Steve</name>
<separator>.</separator>
</data>
XML;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($data);
foreach ($xml->name as $name){
echo "$name\n";
}
foreach ($xml->separator as $sep){
echo "$sep\n";
}
But this way, I can't get the name and the correspondent separator on a single loop.
Is there any way to know, on the first loop, the next element of each name?

Answer 1

I hope that i understand your question.
$xml = simplexml_load_string($data);
$i = 0;
$res = '';
foreach ($xml->name as $name){
$res .= "$name ".$xml->separator[$i];
$i++;
}
$groups = explode(';',$res);

Answer 2

Parse the XML like this and build an array:
$xml = simplexml_load_string($x);
foreach ($xml->children() as $name => $value) {
if ($name == 'name') $names[$i][] = (string)$value;
elseif ($name == 'separator' && $value == ';') $i++;
}
Output $names:
array(2) {
[0]=>array(3) {
[0]=>string(4) "John"
[1]=>string(4) "Mary"
[2]=>string(5) "Susan"
}
[1]=>array(4) {
[0]=>string(5) "Cesar"
[1]=>string(6) "Joseph"
[2]=>string(6) "Sylvia"
[3]=>string(5) "Steve"
}
}
You can then just pick the names from the array.
see it working: https://eval.in/95853