Page not being converted into xml format - php

Question

I am grabbing a page and then converting it into an xml format, the function im using is below
public function getXML($url){
$ch = curl_init();
//curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
//curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$xml = simplexml_load_string($response);
return $xml;
}
print_r($curl->getXML("http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0292783760/ref=tmm_pap_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used"));
After trying different urls nothing is returned, the page loads fine so the problem is with the line $xml = simplexml_load_string($response);
What could be wrong with this code?

Answer 1

Not understanding exactly what you're up to, it looks like you're trying to scrape the Amazon web page? If I pull up that URL in my browser, it's not listed as XHTML in the headers or document itself--I suspect it's not. I don't think simplexml can handle that.
(Does CURL do the conversion to XML for you? I don't think so but I'm not a master of all things CURL. If so, it might be an incompatability between CURL's output and what simplxml--which is fairly limited--will take in).
You might try working with DOMDocument instead, although my PHP could be a bit out of date--there may be better utilities these days.
A quick googling brought up this tutorial
<?php
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->strictErrorChecking = FALSE;
$doc->loadHTML($html);
$xml = simplexml_import_dom($doc);
?>
I don't think this is a complete answer, but it was a bit much for a comment; so take it with a grain of salt and a healthy serving of doubt. I hope it inspires some ideas.