SimpleXML Not Reading URL - php

I'm trying to get the below code to work. Currently it just outputs nothing, a blank page.
if($vUrlDetails = simplexml_load_file($vUrl)) {
// Do something
}
It works fine if I use file_get_contents() and save it to a file and then use simplexml_load_file().
Are there restrictions on loading XML files over a URL using simplexml_load_file()?

I think you can try:
<?php
// http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.construct.php
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('http://my.url.com/something.xml', 0, true);
?>

Related

Saving XML File from URL on my Server

I am able to put the following url in any browser and the xml appears after a few seconds...
ftp://USER:PASSWORD#aphrodite.WEBSITE.net/exports/xml/products.xml
I tried the following code in a php file so I can run a cron daily at midnight and for it to save the xml file on my server. There is a xml file being saved in my data directory but it is blank. Any ideas?
<?php
$content = file_get_contents('ftp://USER:PASSWORD#aphrodite.WEBSITE.net/exports/xml/products.xml');
file_put_contents('./data/products.xml', $xml);
?>
Try this:
<?php
$xml = file_get_contents('ftp://USER:PASSWORD#aphrodite.WEBSITE.net/exports/xml/products.xml');
file_put_contents('./data/products.xml', $xml);
?>
Your $content is not used in the file_put_contents method call so you are not writing anything to the file. I changed the code so that the data gets written to the file.
Nothing wrong with your code since file_get_contents almost supports all the protocols, But you may need to change $xml to $content because as I see $xml variable does not exists in your code.

Copying XSL Feed from one URL to another URL

There is an RSS feed:
www.domain1.com/rss.xsl
I need to copy this xsl feed to another webhost to make
www.domain2.com/rsscopy.xsl
How can I do this? Can I do it via PHP?
Thanks :)
You need to use file_get_contents and file_put_contents functions.
<?php
$rss = file_get_contents('http://www.domain1.com/rss.xsl');
$filename = 'rssCopy.xsl';
$saveRss = file_put_contents($filename, $rss);
if($saveRss)
{
echo 'RSS Copied';
}
Save the above script in your domain2.com and call it via URL.

PHP: SimpleXML writing issue

I am using SimpleXML to write to my XML file on my Apache Server. Here is my PHP code:
<?php
$xmlFile = 'http://localhost/database.xml';
//$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlFile, NULL, TRUE);
$xml = simplexml_load_file($xmlFile);
$xml->addChild("User", "TestUser2");
file_put_contents($xmlFile, $xml->asXML());
?>
My XML file code:
<Usernames>
<User>TestUser1</User>
</Usernames>
The problem I am having is that SimpleXML WILL NOT write to my XML file. I have tried many different methods ($xml->asXML($xmlFile), DOMDocument ... ->save) and none of them are working. I changed the permissions on my file and STILL I cannot write to it:
I have spent hours today trying to get this to work with no success. If anyone has any type of solution it would be great to hear.
When you write the contents to the file, you should pass a system filepath as the first variable, your $xmlFile variable is a URL. Change this to the local file name and it should save.
Based on your comments, the following should work
<?php
$xmlFile = 'http://localhost/database.xml';
$xml = simplexml_load_file($xmlFile);
$xml->addChild("User", "TestUser2");
file_put_contents('/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/DataBase/database.xml', $xml->asXML());
But, I would double check the $xmlFile URL - from what you have said, your local URL could be http://localhost/DataBase/database.xml - you should check that you can open your XML file in Safari using the $xmlFile URL.

Parse a PHP file as an XML file?

I have been working on a project that displays data in an XML file. (It's kind of like an API). I know how to parse XML with PHP, and how to make an XML file in PHP, but they don't work together. :)
Basically, I have two files: parse.php and xml.php.
xml.php grabs info from a MySQL database, and outputs it as XML.
parse.php loads and parses xml.php and outputs it as HTML.
If I run parse.php, it does not load xml.php. However, if I copy the outputted XML (from xml.php) and save it as a xml.xml file (and change the filename in parse.php to 'xml.xml') it works. I'd really appreciate any help.
Content of parse.php:
<?php
$doc = "xml.php";
$doc = #simplexml_load_file($doc) or die("Server Error: Recipe not found!");
$title = $doc->title;
echo $title
?>
Content of xml.php:
<?php
header("Content-type: text/xml");
$dbc = mysql... //gets data from database
echo "<!DOCTYPE..."; //xml stuff here
echo "<title>" . $dataFromMySQL . "</title>";
?>
The database connection works, and the DOCTYPE in the XML is ok, so that's not the problem.
Again, I only get the problem when I generate XML dynamically using PHP. If it's a .XML file, it works fine.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks.
simplexml_load_file will try to actually load the php contents of the xml.php file. It will not run that file first. You need to do some rewriting or use this ugly solution:
ob_start();
include 'xml.php';
$xml = ob_get_clean();
$doc = simplexml_load_string($xml);
//...
NOTE: I like #lonesomeday's proposed solution better, it will just require more rewriting.
#simplexml_load_file($doc);
That is where your problem is. This does not execute xml.php, but attempts to parse that file -- the PHP code that you've written -- as XML. Obviously (since it isn't XML) this won't work.
You have to find a way of getting the output from executing xml.php into parse.php.
The easy way to do this would be to change all your echo calls into $xml .= calls, and simply include xml.php into parse.php.
// xml.php
$xml = '';
$xml .= "<!DOCTYPE..."; //xml stuff here
$output .= "<title>" . $dataFromMySQL . "</title>";
// parse.php
include('xml.php');
simplexml_load_string($xml);
Note that your problem here shows the foolishness of using the error suppression operator #. If you hadn't used it, PHP would have shown you various errors which would have helped you to realise what the problem was.
Addendum: it occurs to me that the best way actually is to forget about the pointless XML step along the way and just convert the database output into HTML.
If you want to do this without rewriting xml.php, you can get PHP to process the file by accessing via url:
$doc = file_get_contents("http://localhost/xml.php");
You're literally loading the local file. Unless you evaluate it, the code doesn't run, so you'll just get the code itself.
You could use CURL to download xml.php over HTTP, or you could make the XML-generation component of the xml.php a callable function which you simply include and execute.
parse.php:
<?php
include('xml.inc');
$doc = #simplexml_load_string(xml_function()) or die("Error");
echo $doc->title;
xml.php:
<?php
include('xml.inc');
header("Content-type: text/xml");
echo xml_function();
xml.inc:
<?php
function xml_function() {
$dbc = mysql... //gets data from database
$xml = "<!DOCTYPE..."; //xml stuff here
$xml .= "<title>" . $dataFromMySQL . "</title>";
return $xml;
}
But... even that seems silly, honestly, when you could have both output methods connect to the same data and skip a generation/parse step. Simply output HTML/XML conditionally.

How do I parse an external XML file (returned from a POST) with php?

I have a simple code written (based on some tutorials found around the internet) to parse and display an XML file. However, I only know how to reference an XML file stored on my server and I would like to be able to use an XML file that is being returned to me from a POST.
Right now my code looks like this:
if( ! $xml = simplexml_load_file('test.xml') )
{
echo 'unable to load XML file';
}
else
{
foreach( $xml as $event)
{
echo 'Title: ';
echo "$event->title<br />";
echo 'Description: '.$event->info.'<br />';
echo '<br />';
}
}
Is there some way I can replace the simpleXML_load_file function with one that will allow me to point to the POST URL that returns the XML file?
Use simplexml_load_string instead of loadfile:
simplexml_load_string($_POST['a']);
If you get the url to the file in the POST you can propably use the simplexml_load_file function with the url, but if that doesn't work you can use the file_get_contents in combination with the simplexml_load_string:
//say $_POST['a'] == 'http://example.com/test.xml';
simplexml_load_file($_POST['a']); // <-- propably works
simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents($_POST['a'])); //<-- defenitly works (propaly what happens internally)
also getting contents of external files could be prohibited by running PHP in safe mode.
If you are receiving a file that's been uploaded by the user, you can find it (the file) looking at the content of the $_FILES superglobal variable -- and you can read more about files uploads here (for instance, don't forget to call move_uploaded_file if you don't want the file to be deleted at the end of the request).
Then, you can work with this file the same way you already do with not-uploaded files.
If you are receiving an XML string, you can use simplexml_load_string on it.
And if you are only receiving the URL to a remote XML content, you have to :
download the file to your server
and, then, parse its content.
This can be done using simplexml_load_file, passing the URL as a parameter, if your server is properly configured (i.e. if allow_url_fopen is enabled).
Else, the download will have to be done using curl -- see curl_exec for a very basic example, and curl_setopt for the options you can use (you'll especially want to use CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, to get the XML data as a string you can pass to simplexml_load_string).
From http://www.developershome.com/wap/wapUpload/wap_upload.asp?page=php4:
If you do not want to save the
uploaded file directly but to process
it, the PHP functions
file_get_contents() and fread() can
help you. The file_get_contents()
function returns a string that
contains all data of the uploaded
file:
if (is_uploaded_file($_FILES['myFile']['tmp_name']))
$fileData = file_get_contents($_FILES['myFile']['tmp_name']);
That will give you a handle on the raw text within that file. From there you will need to parse through the XML. Hope that helps!
Check out simplexml_load_string. You can then use cURL to do the post and fetch the result. An example:
<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_string($string_fetched_with_curl);
?>

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