Retrieving single node value from a nodelist - php

Question

I'm having difficulty extracting a single node value from a nodelist.
My code takes an xml file which holds several fields, some containing text, file paths and full image names with extensions.
I run an expath query over it, looking for the node item with a certain id. It then stores the matched node item and saves it as $oldnode
Now my problem is trying to extract a value from that $oldnode. I have tried to var_dump($oldnode) and print_r($oldnode) but it returns the following: "object(DOMElement)#8 (0) { } "
Im guessing the $oldnode variable is an object, but how do I access it?
I am able to echo out the whole node list by using: echo $oldnode->nodeValue;
This displays all the nodes in the list.
Here is the code which handles the xml file. line 6 is the line in question...
$xpathexp = "//item[#id=". $updateID ."]";
$xpath = new DOMXpath($xml);
$nodelist = $xpath->query($xpathexp);
if((is_null($nodelist)) || (! is_numeric($nodelist))) {
$oldnode = $nodelist->item(0);
echo $oldnode->nodeValue;
//$imgUpload = strchr($oldnode->nodeValue, ' ');
//$imgUpload = strrchr($imgUpload, '/');
//explode('/',$imgUpload);
//$imgUpload = trim($imgUpload);
$newItem = new DomDocument;
$item_node = $newItem ->createElement('item');
//Create attribute on the node as well
$item_node ->setAttribute("id", $updateID);
$largeImageText = $newItem->createElement('largeImgText');
$largeImageText->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection($largeImgText));
$item_node->appendChild($largeImageText);
$urlANode = $newItem->createElement('urlA');
$urlANode->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection($urlA));
$item_node->appendChild($urlANode);
$largeImg = $newItem->createElement('largeImg');
$largeImg->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection($imgUpload));
$item_node->appendChild($largeImg);
$thumbnailTextNode = $newItem->createElement('thumbnailText');
$thumbnailTextNode->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection($thumbnailText));
$item_node->appendChild($thumbnailTextNode);
$urlB = $newItem->createElement('urlB');
$urlB->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection($urlA));
$item_node->appendChild($urlB);
$thumbnailImg = $newItem->createElement('thumbnailImg');
$thumbnailImg->appendChild( $newItem->createCDATASection(basename($_FILES['thumbnailImg']['name'])));
$item_node->appendChild($thumbnailImg);
$newItem->appendChild($item_node);
$newnode = $xml->importNode($newItem->documentElement, true);
// Replace
$oldnode->parentNode->replaceChild($newnode, $oldnode);
// Display
$xml->save($xmlFileData);
//header('Location: index.php?a=112&id=5');
Any help would be great.
Thanks

Answer 1

Wasn't it supposed to be echo $oldnode->firstChild->nodeValue;? I remember this because technically you need the value from the text node.. but I might be mistaken, it's been a while. You could give it a try?
After our discussion in the comments on this answer, I came up with this solution. I'm not sure if it can be done cleaner, perhaps. But it should work.
$nodelist = $xpath->query($xpathexp);
if((is_null($nodelist)) || (! is_numeric($nodelist))) {
$oldnode = $nodelist->item(0);
$largeImg = null;
$thumbnailImg = null;
foreach( $oldnode->childNodes as $node ) {
if( $node->nodeName == "largeImg" ) {
$largeImg = $node->nodeValue;
} else if( $node->nodeName == "thumbnailImg" ) {
$thumbnailImg = $node->nodeValue;
}
}
var_dump($largeImg);
var_dump($thumbnailImg);
}
You could also use getElementsByTagName on the $oldnode, then see if it found anything (and if a node was found, $oldnode->getElementsByTagName("thumbnailImg")->item(0)->nodeValue). Which might be cleaner then looping through them.