PHP include external method and class - php

Question

I'm new to PHP and I have an issue I can't seem to fix or find a solution to.
I'm trying to create a helper function that will return an 'object' filled with information pulled from an XML file. This helper function, named functions.php contains a getter method which returns a 'class' object filled with data from an SVN log.xml file.
Whenever I try to import this file using include 'functions.php'; none of the code after that line runs the calling function's page is blank.
What am I doing wrong?
Here is what the functions.php helper method and class declaration looks like:
<?php
$list_xml=simplexml_load_file("svn_list.xml");
$log_xml=simplexml_load_file("svn_log.xml");
class Entry{
var $revision;
var $date;
}
function getEntry($date){
$ret = new Entry;
foreach ($log_xml->logentry as $logentry){
if ($logentry->date == $date){
$ret->date = $logentry->date;
$ret->author = $logentry->author;
}
}
return $ret;
}

Answer 1

I'm not sure what the point of having a separate helper function from the class is, personally I'd combine the two. Something like this
other-file.php
require './Entry.php';
$oLogEntry = Entry::create($date, 'svn_log.xml');
echo $oLogEntry->date;
echo $oLogEntry->revision;
Entry.php
class Entry
{
public $revision;
public $date;
public $author;
public static function create($date, $file) {
$ret = new Entry;
$xml = simplexml_load_file($file);
foreach($xml->logentry as $logentry) {
if($logentry->date == $date) {
$ret->date = $logentry->date;
$ret->author = $logentry->author;
$ret->revision = $logentry->revision;
}
}
return $ret;
}
}
EDIT
In light of the fact OP is new to PHP, I'll revise my suggestion completely. How about ditching the class altogether here? There's hardly any reason to use a class I can see at this point; let's take a look at using an array instead.
I might still move the simplexml_load_file into the helper function though. Would need to see other operations to merit keeping it broken out.
entry-helper.php
function getEntry($date, $file) {
$log_xml = simplexml_load_file($file);
$entry = array();
foreach($log_xml->logentry as $logentry) {
if($logentry->date == $date) {
$entry['date'] = $logentry->date;
$entry['author'] = $logentry->author;
$entry['revision'] = $logentry->revision;
}
}
return $entry;
}
other-file.php
require './entry.php';
$aLogEntry = Entry::create($date, 'svn_log.xml');
echo $aLogEntry['date'];
echo $aLogEntry['revision'];
EDIT
One final thought.. Since you're seemingly searching for a point of interest in the log, then copying out portions of that node, why not just search for the match and return that node? Here's what I mean (a return of false indicates there was no log from that date)
function getEntry($date, $file) {
$log_xml = simplexml_load_file($file);
foreach($log_xml->logentry as $logentry) {
if($logentry->date == $date) {
return $logentry;
return false;
}
Also, what happens if you have multiple log entries from the same date? This will only return a single entry for a given date.
I would suggest using XPATH. There you can throw a single, concise XPATH expression at this log XML and get back an array of objects for all the entries from a given date. What you're working on is a good starting point, but once you have the basics, I'd move to XPATH for a clean final solution.