PHP: SimpleXML writing issue - php

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.

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.

Iterate through xml file that has a php extension

I have been given an XML feed to get data from to use on a clients website, I have worked with XML before when the file is somfile.xml and for this I use simplexml_load_file, however the feed I have been given to work with is mmluxuryvillas.com/mmtoxml.php a PHP file. simplexml_load_file returns bool(false) when trying to read this file.
Below is the code I am using, which works if I create a test.xml file but not on the feed I have been given, how can I iterate through this data:
$url = "mmluxuryvillas.com/mmtoxml.php";
$xml = simplexml_load_file($url);
var_dump($xml);
foreach($xml->item as $item) {
echo "<p>".$item->inmueble."</p>";
}
Regards
Rick
The answer is that the http:// was missing from the url, with this it works perfectly... Hope this helps someone in the future!

SimpleXML Not Reading URL

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);
?>

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.

PHP SimpleXML new line

I have created a XML file using PHP's simple XML, saved the file. When opening the file in php using fopen and printing the contents. my XML looks like this: (see below)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<home><orderList><delivery_cost>0.00</delivery_cost><delivery_surname>TEST</delivery_surname><delivery_postcode>1234</delivery_postcode><status>1</status></orderList></home>
I want the xml file looking all indented and on new lines for each element. Does anybody know how to do this?
Thanks
You can do this using the formatOutput property of DOMDocument.
Save your XML like this instead, presuming your XML is in a variable called $yourXML, and you want to save it to a file at $xmlFilePath:
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadXML($yourXML);
$dom->formatOutput = true;
$formattedXML = $dom->saveXML();
$fp = fopen($xmlFilePath,'w+');
fwrite($fp, $formattedXML);
fclose($fp);
Code adapted from here.
This is called "pretty printing" and SimpleXML does not do that. If you search on Stack Overflow and elsewhere on the web you'll find custom solutions that do that.
Pretty printing is good for visulation but I don't recommend saving documents in that format.
If you're still looking for a pretty-printer, you can try SimpleDOM's asPrettyXML()
include 'SimpleDOM.php';
$home = simpledom_load_string('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<home><orderList><delivery_cost>0.00</delivery_cost><delivery_surname>TEST</delivery_surname><delivery_postcode>1234</delivery_postcode><status>1</status></orderList></home>');
echo $home->asPrettyXML();
echo "\n"; for new line in xml
ob_start(); echo '
' . "\n";?>

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