PHP XML Tutorial: Create, Parse, Read with Example

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What is XML?

XML is the acronym for Extensible Markup Language.

XML is used to structure, store and transport data from one system to another.

XML is similar to HTML.

It uses opening and closing tags.

Unlike HTML, XML allows users to define their own tags.

In this tutorial, you will learn-

What is DOM?

DOM is the acronym for Document Object Model.

It’s a cross platform and language neutral standard that defines how to access and manipulate data in;

DOM XML is used to access and manipulate XML documents. It views the XML document as a tree-structure.

XML Parsers

An XML parser is a program that translates the XML document into an XML Document Object Model (DOM) Object.

The XML DOM Object can then be manipulated using JavaScript, Python, and PHP etc.

The keyword CDATA which is the acronym for (Unparsed) Character Data is used to ignore special characters such as “<,>” when parsing an XML document.

Why use XML?

XML Document example

Let’s suppose that you are developing an application that gets data from a web service in XML format.

Below is the sample of how the XML document looks like. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<employees status = "ok">

        <record man_no = "101">

            <name>Joe Paul</name>

            <position>CEO</position>

        </record>

        <record man_no = "102">

            <name>Tasha Smith</name>

            <position>Finance Manager</position>

        </record>

</employees>

  HERE,

How to Read XML using PHP

Let’s now write the code that will read the employees XML document and display the results in a web browser. Index.php 

<?php

$xml = simplexml_load_file('employees.xml');

echo '<h2>Employees Listing</h2>';

$list = $xml->record;

for ($i = 0; $i < count($list); $i++) {

    echo '<b>Man no:</b> ' . $list[$i]->attributes()->man_no . '<br>';

    echo 'Name: ' . $list[$i]->name . '<br>';

    echo 'Position: ' . $list[$i]->position . '<br><br>';

}
?>

  HERE,

Testing our application

Assuming you saved the file index.php in phptus/xml folder, browse to the URL http://localhost/phptuts/xml/index.php

PHP XML, DOM, Parser

How to Create an XML document using PHP

We will now look at how to create an XML document using PHP.

We will use the example above in the DOM tree diagram.

The following code uses the PHP built in class DOMDocument to create an XML document. 

<?php

	$dom = new DOMDocument();

		$dom->encoding = 'utf-8';

		$dom->xmlVersion = '1.0';

		$dom->formatOutput = true;

	$xml_file_name = 'movies_list.xml';

		$root = $dom->createElement('Movies');

		$movie_node = $dom->createElement('movie');

		$attr_movie_id = new DOMAttr('movie_id', '5467');

		$movie_node->setAttributeNode($attr_movie_id);

	$child_node_title = $dom->createElement('Title', 'The Campaign');

		$movie_node->appendChild($child_node_title);

		$child_node_year = $dom->createElement('Year', 2012);

		$movie_node->appendChild($child_node_year);

	$child_node_genre = $dom->createElement('Genre', 'The Campaign');

		$movie_node->appendChild($child_node_genre);

		$child_node_ratings = $dom->createElement('Ratings', 6.2);

		$movie_node->appendChild($child_node_ratings);

		$root->appendChild($movie_node);

		$dom->appendChild($root);

	$dom->save($xml_file_name);

	echo "$xml_file_name has been successfully created";
?>

  HERE,

Testing our application

Assuming you saved the file create_movies_list in phptuts/xml folder, browse to the URL http://localhost/phptuts/xml/create_movies_list.php

PHP XML, DOM, Parser

Click on movies_list_xml link

PHP XML, DOM, Parser

Summary

 

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