This will be a quick tutorial that will show you how to use PHP’s DOMDocument to parse your XML so you do not have to use XML parser. In this tutorial you’ll see how to loop through your XML file and how to extract some specific data. For this, we will use XML file that is available on w3school.com.
Load DocumentTop
First thing we have to do is to make an instance of DOMDocument class.
$dom = new DOMDocument();
Now that we have instance, we can load document. To do that we’ll use load method. As an argument we pass path to our XML file.
$dom->load('http://www.w3schools.com/XML/simple.xml');
Now our document is loaded and we can do with it what we want.
Loop Through XMLTop
Now we will loop through our XML file. Let’s say we want to print data from food elements. To do that we have to select them first. We’ll do that by using getElementsByTagName method and pass name of our element (food).
$food = $dom->getElementsByTagName('food');
If you do var_dump on $food variable you’ll see that you get instance of DOMNodeList class. It has method item and variable $length so you can loop through them or use foreach to do the job. When you loop you’ll get each element that you got from your query as DOMElement and then you can do new queries or modify that element. We’ll just loop.
<ul>
< ?php
//Loop through each item
foreach ($food as $elem) {
?>
<li>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Name:</b></td>
<td>< ?php echo $elem->getElementsByTagName('name')
->item(0)
->nodeValue; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Description:</b></td>
<td>< ?php echo $elem->getElementsByTagName('description')
->item(0)
->nodeValue; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Price:</b></td>
<td>< ?php echo $elem->getElementsByTagName('price')
->item(0)
->nodeValue; ?></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Calories:</b></td>
<td>< ?php echo $elem->getElementsByTagName('calories')
->item(0)
->nodeValue; ?></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</li>
< ?php
}
?>
</ul>
As you can see, we do new queries on our element retrieved from loop. We want element with tag names name, description, price and calories. When we get our element we want first of them that is in list of elements retrieved from query and it’s value. This is how we loop through our XML. Result should be something like this.
| Name: | Belgian Waffles |
| Description: | two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup |
| Price: | $5.95 |
| Calories: | 650 |
| Name: | Strawberry Belgian Waffles |
| Description: | light Belgian waffles covered with strawberries and whipped cream |
| Price: | $7.95 |
| Calories: | 900 |
| Name: | Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles |
| Description: | light Belgian waffles covered with an assortment of fresh berries and whipped cream |
| Price: | $8.95 |
| Calories: | 900 |
| Name: | French Toast |
| Description: | thick slices made from our homemade sourdough bread |
| Price: | $4.50 |
| Calories: | 600 |
| Name: | Homestyle Breakfast |
| Description: | two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns |
| Price: | $6.95 |
| Calories: | 950 |
Retrieve Specific ElementTop
Let’s say we want to get value of name element in third food element and print it out. We will use something like this.
$third = $dom->getElementsByTagName('food')
->item(2);
echo sprintf(
'Name of third element is: <b>%s</b>',
$third->getElementsByTagName('name')
->item(0)
->nodeValue
);
You should get result like this.
Name of third element is: Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles
ConclusionTop
DOM classes in PHP are very powerful and I like to use them for parsing XML much more then XML parser because they are build in object-oriented way and can be very easy extended. Thank you for reading.
@buzzknow
Not here on my site but I can do one (although if you check Edit XML you could get some idea).
@parvez
I’ve answered to you question here.
Sir,
thnx 4 this useful tutorial.
i hv a quesry..how we delete a specific node
from xml file.
example:
1
mhtkkk
2
mhtkkk
i want delete id=2 hole node.
any tuts how to create XML with this class?
thanks
It seams that WP removed XML (if you placed any) so could you place encoded it.
This was a life saver. I do have a question though, what if you have a sub element like
And you want to get each of those topppings?
Add Specific Element in xml object $dom and save in XML file.
load(‘http://www.w3schools.com/XML/simple.xml’);
$food = ‘food’;
$child = ‘quantity’; // New Element
$qty=’500′; // New Element value
$foodList = $dom->getElementsByTagName(‘food’);
$foodCnt = $foodList->length;
for ($idx = 0; $idx getElementsByTagName($food)->item($idx)->appendChild($dom->createElement($child));
$childNode->appendChild($dom->createTextNode($qty));
$qty = $qty + $idx;
}
$dom->formatOutput = true;// set the formatOutput attribute of domDocument to true
// save XML as string or file
$test1 = $dom->saveXML(); // put string in test1
$dom->save(‘sample.xml’);
?>
Hope it helps someone.
[...] Now we’ll load each child element of item so we can manipulate with them. If you don’t know how to load them, check my previous tutorial about XML here. [...]
Thank you, This makes my life easier to implement a feature in my site.
I agree that the DOM classes are much more easy to use.
Thanks for the info
Nice wrapper
. I’m having plans on creating new tutorial about using DOMDocument as database for some store software but right now don’t have time. I may use it. Thanks.
I’ve created a wrapper around DOMDocument called SmartDOMDocument to overcome some of its shortcomings.
You can find here: http://beerpla.net/projects/smartdomdocument
Hope it helps someone.
great tutorial , finaly i got it.
thanks
it is helpful for guys like me who was looking for a kick start about domdocument xml parsing.
Ok, will do tutorial soon about that, but I have one tutorial pending now so when that one is done, I’ll do your
.
Hi, nice tutorial. I have a query, can u post some info on manipulating xml file data with php. I want to edit xml file data with php form, I searched internet a lot, but not able to figure out exact thing, may be I am losing something.
Thanks in advance.
Nice tutorial, thanks a lot, that was helpful.