iterating over unknown XML structure with PHP (DOM) - php

Question

I want to write a function that parses a (theoretically) unknown XML data structure into an equivalent PHP array.
Here is my sample XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<content>
<title>Sample Text</title>
<introduction>
<paragraph>This is some rudimentary text</paragraph>
</introduction>
<description>
<paragraph>Here is some more text</paragraph>
<paragraph>Even MORE text</paragraph>
<sub_section>
<sub_para>This is a smaller, sub paragraph</sub_para>
<sub_para>This is another smaller, sub paragraph</sub_para>
</sub_section>
</description>
</content>
I modified this DOM iterating function from devarticles:
$data = 'path/to/xmldoc.xml';
$xmlDoc = new DOMDocument(); #create a DOM element
$xmlDoc->load( $data ); #load data into the element
$xmlRoot = $xmlDoc->firstChild; #establish root
function xml2array($node)
{
if ($node->hasChildNodes())
{
$subNodes = $node->childNodes;
foreach ($subNodes as $subNode)
{
#filter node types
if (($subNode->nodeType != 3) || (($subNode->nodeType == 3)))
{
$arraydata[$subNode->nodeName]=$subNode->nodeValue;
}
xml2array($subNode);
}
}
return $arraydata;
}
//The getNodesInfo function call
$xmlarray = xml2array($xmlRoot);
// print the output - with a little bit of formatting for ease of use...
foreach($xmlarray as $xkey)
{
echo"$xkey<br/><br/>";
}
Now, because of the way I'm passing the elements to the array I'm overwriting any elements that share a node name (since I ideally want to give the keys the same names as their originating nodes). My recursion isn't great... However, even if I empty the brackets - the second tier of nodes are still coming in as values on the first tier (see the text of the description node).
Anyone got any ideas how I can better construct this?

Answer 1

You might be better off just snagging some code off the net
http://www.bin-co.com/php/scripts/xml2array/
/**
* xml2array() will convert the given XML text to an array in the XML structure.
* Link: http://www.bin-co.com/php/scripts/xml2array/
* Arguments : $contents - The XML text
* $get_attributes - 1 or 0. If this is 1 the function will get the attributes as well as the tag values - this results in a different array structure in the return value.
* $priority - Can be 'tag' or 'attribute'. This will change the way the resulting array sturcture. For 'tag', the tags are given more importance.
* Return: The parsed XML in an array form. Use print_r() to see the resulting array structure.
* Examples: $array = xml2array(file_get_contents('feed.xml'));
* $array = xml2array(file_get_contents('feed.xml', 1, 'attribute'));
*/
function xml2array($contents, $get_attributes=1, $priority = 'tag') {

Answer 2

You might be interested in SimpleXML or xml_parse_into_struct.
$arraydata is neither passed to subsequent calls to xml2array() nor is the return value used, so yes "My recursion isn't great..." is true ;-)
To append a new element to an existing array you can use empty square brackets, $arr[] = 123; $arr[$x][] = 123;

Answer 3

You might also want to check out XML Unserializer
http://pear.php.net/package/XML_Serializer/redirected