display data from XML using php simplexml - php

Question

I have a piece of XML which is as follows
<records count="2">
<record>
<firstname>firstname</firstname>
<middlename>middlename</middlename>
<lastname>lastname</lastname>
<namesuffix/>
<address>
<street-number>demo</street-number>
<street-pre-direction/>
<street-name>demo</street-name>
<street-post-direction/>
<street-suffix>demo</street-suffix>
<city>demo</city>
<state>NY</state>
<zip>demo</zip>
<zip4>demo</zip4>
<county>demo</county>
</address>
<phonenumberdetails>
<phonenumber>demo</phonenumber>
<listed>demo</listed>
<firstname>demo</firstname>
</phonenumberdetails>
<dob day="" month="" year=""/>
<age/>
<date-first month="10" year="1999"/>
<date-last month="04" year="2011"/>
</record>
<record>
<firstname>firstname</firstname>
<middlename>middlename</middlename>
<lastname>lastname</lastname>
<namesuffix/>
<address>
<street-number>demo</street-number>
<street-pre-direction/>
<street-name>demo</street-name>
<street-post-direction/>
<street-suffix>demo</street-suffix>
<city>demo</city>
<state>NY</state>
<zip>demo</zip>
<zip4>demo</zip4>
<county>demo</county>
</address>
<phonenumberdetails>
<phonenumber>demo</phonenumber>
<listed>demo</listed>
<firstname>demo</firstname>
</phonenumberdetails>
<dob day="" month="" year=""/>
<age/>
<date-first month="10" year="1999"/>
<date-last month="04" year="2011"/>
</record>
</records>
Now, I have been able to get all the data in PHP using SimpleXML except for the date-first and date-last elements. I have been using code listed below
$dateFirst = 'date-first';
$dateLast = 'date-last';
$streetNumber = 'street-number';
$streetPreDirection = 'street-pre-direction';
$streetName = 'street-name';
$streetPostDirection = 'street-post-direction';
$streetSuffix = 'street-suffix';
$unitDesignation = 'unit-designation';
$unitNumber = 'unit-number';
foreach ($reportDataXmlrecords->records->record as $currentRecord) {
echo $currentRecord->$dateFirst['month'].'/'.$currentRecord->$dateFirst['year'];
echo $currentRecord->$dateLast['month'].'/'.$currentRecord->$dateLast['year'];
echo $currentRecord->address->$streetNumber;
$currentRecord->address->$streetName; // ......and so on
}
where $reportDataXmlrecords is the part of the simpleXML object from the parent node of
But the first two echo's don't print anything and all the other are printing correctly, specifically, I cant access the data in
<date-first month="10" year="1999"/>
<date-last month="04" year="2011"/>
Also for debugging if I do
print_r($currentRecord->$dateFirst);
it prints
SimpleXMLElement Object (
[#attributes] => Array ( [month] => 10 [year] => 1999 )
)
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

You problem is when you do
$currentRecord->$dateFirst['month']
PHP will first evaluate $dateFirst['month'] as a whole before trying to use it as a property
$dateFirst = 'date-first';
var_dump( $dateFirst['month'] ); // gives "d"
because strings can be accessed by offset with array notation, but non-integer offsets are converted to integer and because casting 'month' to integer is 0, you are trying to do $currentRecord->d:
$xml = <<< XML
<record>
<date-first month="jan"/>
<d>foo</d>
</record>
XML;
$record = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$var = 'date-first';
echo $record->$var['month']; // foo
You can access hyphenated properties with curly braces:
$record->{'date-first'}['month'] // jan
On a sidenote, when the XML shown in your question is really the XML you are loading with SimpleXml, e.g. when <records> is the root node, then doing
$reportDataXmlrecords->records->record
cannot work, because $reportDataXmlrecords is already the root node and you'd have to omit the ->records if you want to iterate over the record elements in it.