The SimpleXMLIterator class

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7)

Introduction

The SimpleXMLIterator provides recursive iteration over all nodes of a SimpleXMLElement object.

Class synopsis

SimpleXMLIterator extends SimpleXMLElement implements RecursiveIterator , Countable {

/* Methods */

public mixed current ( void )

public SimpleXMLIterator getChildren ( void )

public bool hasChildren ( void )

public mixed key ( void )

public void next ( void )

public void rewind ( void )

public bool valid ( void )

/* Inherited methods */

final public SimpleXMLElement::__construct ( string $data [, int $options = 0 [, bool $data_is_url = false [, string $ns = "" [, bool $is_prefix = false ]]]] )

public void SimpleXMLElement::addAttribute ( string $name [, string $value [, string $namespace ]] )

public SimpleXMLElement SimpleXMLElement::addChild ( string $name [, string $value [, string $namespace ]] )

public mixed SimpleXMLElement::asXML ([ string $filename ] )

public SimpleXMLElement SimpleXMLElement::attributes ([ string $ns = NULL [, bool $is_prefix = false ]] )

public SimpleXMLElement SimpleXMLElement::children ([ string $ns [, bool $is_prefix = false ]] )

public int SimpleXMLElement::count ( void )

public array SimpleXMLElement::getDocNamespaces ([ bool $recursive = false [, bool $from_root = true ]] )

public string SimpleXMLElement::getName ( void )

public array SimpleXMLElement::getNamespaces ([ bool $recursive = false ] )

public bool SimpleXMLElement::registerXPathNamespace ( string $prefix , string $ns )

public string SimpleXMLElement::__toString ( void )

public array SimpleXMLElement::xpath ( string $path )

}

SimpleXMLIterator::current — Returns the current element
SimpleXMLIterator::getChildren — Returns the sub-elements of the current element
SimpleXMLIterator::hasChildren — Checks whether the current element has sub elements.
SimpleXMLIterator::key — Return current key
SimpleXMLIterator::next — Move to next element
SimpleXMLIterator::rewind — Rewind to the first element
SimpleXMLIterator::valid — Check whether the current element is valid

User Contributed Notes

ratfactor at gmail dot com

6 years ago


The documentation is a bit sparse for SimpleXmlIterator.  Here is an example showing the use of its methods. xml2Array and sxiToArray work together to convert an XML document to an associative array structure.

The contents of cats.xml:
======================================
<cats>
  <cat>
      <name>Jack</name>
      <age>2</age>
      <color>grey</color>
      <color>white</color>
  </cat>
  <cat>
      <name>Maxwell</name>
      <age>12</age>
      <color>orange</color>
      <color>black</color>
  </cat>
</cats>
======================================

<?php
function xml2array($fname){
  $sxi = new SimpleXmlIterator($fname, null, true);
  return sxiToArray($sxi);
}

function sxiToArray($sxi){
  $a = array();
  for( $sxi->rewind(); $sxi->valid(); $sxi->next() ) {
    if(!array_key_exists($sxi->key(), $a)){
      $a[$sxi->key()] = array();
    }
    if($sxi->hasChildren()){
      $a[$sxi->key()][] = sxiToArray($sxi->current());
    }
    else{
      $a[$sxi->key()][] = strval($sxi->current());
    }
  }
  return $a;
}

// Read cats.xml and print the results:
$catArray = xml2array('cats.xml');
print_r($catArray);
?>

Results (reformatted a bit for compactness and clarity):
======================================
Array(
  [cat] => Array(
    [0] => Array(
      [name] => Array(  [0] => Jack    )
      [age] => Array(   [0] => 2       )
      [color] => Array( [0] => grey,
                        [1] => white   )
    )
    [1] => Array(
      [name] => Array(  [0] => Maxwell )
      [age] => Array(   [0] => 12      )
      [color] => Array( [0] => orange
                        [1] => black   )
    )
  )
)

hezll at msn dot com

3 years ago


Most of the time we need to convert the XML to array or JSON , but now I have to completed the requirement of converting XML to XPath which make our template easily geting the data from XML data source due to the Xpath mapping .Here is the function:

<?php

function sxiToXpath($sxi, $key = null, &$tmp = null)
{
    $keys_arr = array();
    //get the keys count array
    for ($sxi->rewind(); $sxi->valid(); $sxi->next())
    {
        $sk = $sxi->key();
        if (array_key_exists($sk, $keys_arr))
        {
            $keys_arr[$sk]+=1;
            $keys_arr[$sk] = $keys_arr[$sk];
        }
        else
        {
            $keys_arr[$sk] = 1;
        }
    }
    //create the xpath 
    for ($sxi->rewind(); $sxi->valid(); $sxi->next())
    {
        $sk = $sxi->key();
        if (!isset($$sk))
        {
            $$sk = 1;
        }
        if ($keys_arr[$sk] >= 1)
        {
            $spk = $sk . '[' . $$sk . ']';
            $keys_arr[$sk] = $keys_arr[$sk] - 1;
            $$sk++;
        }
        else
        {
            $spk = $sk;
        }
        $kp = $key ? $key . '/' . $spk : '/' . $sxi->getName() . '/' . $spk;
        if ($sxi->hasChildren())
        {
            sxiToXpath($sxi->getChildren(), $kp, $tmp);
        }
        else
        {
            $tmp[$kp] = strval($sxi->current());
        }
        $at = $sxi->current()->attributes();
        if ($at)
        {
            $tmp_kp = $kp;
            foreach ($at as $k => $v)
            {
                $kp .= '/@' . $k;
                $tmp[$kp] = $v;
                $kp = $tmp_kp;
            }
        }
    }
    return $tmp;
}

function xmlToXpath($xml)
{
    $sxi = new SimpleXmlIterator($xml);
    return sxiToXpath($sxi);
}

/**
 *  How to use the function 
 */
$xml = <<<EOT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf8" ?>        
<data>
   <item ID="30001">
      <Company>Navarro Corp.</Company>
   </item>
   <item ID="30002" IDd="30002">
      <Company>Performant Systems</Company>
   </item>
   <item ID="30003">
      <Company id='id_test'><g id='id_g'>glove</g></Company>    
   </item>
    <item>
    </item>
</data>
EOT;

$rs = xmlToXpath($xml);
print_r($rs);

/**
 * the results may lkie this:
Array
(
    [/data/item[1]/Company[1]] => Navarro Corp.
    [/data/item[1]/@ID] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => 30001
        )
    [/data/item[2]/Company[1]] => Performant Systems
    [/data/item[2]/@ID] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => 30002
        )

    [/data/item[2]/@IDd] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => 30002
        )

    [/data/item[3]/Company[1]/g[1]] => glove
    [/data/item[3]/Company[1]/g[1]/@id] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => id_g
        )

    [/data/item[3]/Company[1]/@id] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => id_test
        )

    [/data/item[3]/@ID] => SimpleXMLIterator Object
        (
            [0] => 30003
        )

    [/data/item[4]] => 
    
) 
 */

echo "Total:" . count($rs);

echo "<hr>";
/* You can check the xpath result like this */
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
foreach ($rs as $k => $v)
{
    echo "Xpath:" . $k . " |Value:" . $v . " ";
    var_dump($xml->xpath($k));
    echo "<br>";
}

centy2010 at hotmail dot com

1 year ago


I filled my database from an XML file about 1260 Kb.
I made my process less than a second. Simply by using SimpleXML.

I give you a little example of the usage to fill a database.
Given the table universe.
With 4 columns Coords, Planet_Name, Player_id, Moon_Size.

Now You have a XML file named universe.xml with this kind of data.
I enclose the data within php tags but it's a file :p
<?php
$xml = <<<EOT
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<universe xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" -
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://s127-fr.ogame.gameforge.com/api/xsd/universe.xsd" -
timestamp="1405413350" serverId="fr127">
    <planet id="1" player="1" name="Arakis" coords="1:1:2">
        <moon id="2" name="Mond" size="4998"/>
    </planet>
    <planet id="33620176" player="100000" name="GameAdmin" coords="1:1:3"/>
    <planet id="33620179" player="100003" name="Heimatplanet" coords="1:1:1"/>
    <planet id="33620186" player="100004" name="OGame Team" coords="6:250:1"/>
    <planet id="33620242" player="100058" name="KnS" coords="9:1:6">
        <moon id="33668391" name="Lune" size="8831"/>
    </planet>
</universe>
EOT;
?>

Now how to bring these data in my 4 columns table :

<?php
$newfname = $path."Universe.XML";
$mydata = new SimpleXmlIterator($newfname, 0, true);
$myquery = "INSERT INTO `".$tablename."` (`coords`,`planet_name`, `player_id`, `moon_size`) VALUES ";
for ($mydata->rewind();$mydata->valid();$mydata->next()) {
    $myquery.= " ('".$mydata->current()->attributes()['coords']
_."','".utf8_decode($mydata->current()->attributes()['name'])
_."','".utf8_decode($mydata->current()->attributes()['player'])
_."','";
    if ($mydata->haschildren()) {
        $myquery.= $mydate->current()->children()->attributes()['size']."'),";
    } else {
        $myquery.= "'),";
    }
}
$myquery = rtrim($myquery, ",");
$datatosql = mysql_query($myquery);
?>

php-lover at live dot com

6 months ago


Function to extract SimpleXMLElement data to array.

function extract($sxe = null) {
    if (!$sxe instanceOf SimpleXMLElement)
        return array();

    $extract = array();

    foreach ($sxe->children() as $key => $value) {
        if (array_key_exists($key, $extract)) {
            if (!isset($extract[$key][0])) {
                $tmp_extract = $extract[$key];
                $extract[$key] = array();
                $extract[$key][0] = $tmp_extract; 
            } else
                $extract[$key] = (array) $extract[$key];
        } 

        if ($value->count()) {
            if (isset($extract[$key]) && is_array($extract[$key]))
                $extract[$key][] = $this->extract($value);
            else
                $extract[$key] = $this->extract($value);
        } else {
            if (isset($extract[$key]) && is_array($extract[$key]))
                $extract[$key][] = empty(strval($value)) ? null : strval($value);
            else
                $extract[$key] = empty(strval($value)) ? null : strval($value);
        }
    }

    return $extract;
}

ajnsit dot NOSPAM at gmail dot com

5 years ago


Here's a simple function to convert an XML string to an array -

<?php
// PHP5.3 and above only
function parse($str) {
    $f = function($iter) {
      foreach($iter as $key=>$val)
        $arr[$key][] = ($iter->hasChildren())?
          call_user_func (__FUNCTION__, $val)
          : strval($val);
      return $arr;
    };
    return $f(new SimpleXmlIterator($str, null));
}
?>

PHP 5.2 and below do not have anonymous functions.
But you can create a helper function to achieve the same thing -

<?php
  function parse($str) {
    return parseHelper(new SimpleXmlIterator($str, null));
  }
  function parseHelper($iter) {
    foreach($iter as $key=>$val)
      $arr[$key][] = ($iter->hasChildren())?
        call_user_func (__FUNCTION__, $val)
        : strval($val);
    return $arr;
  }
?>

Using it is straightforward enough -

<?php

$xml = '
<movies>
  <movie>abcd</movie>
  <movie>efgh</movie>
  <movie>hijk</movie>
</movies>';
var_dump(parse($xml));

?>

This will output -

array
  'movie' => 
    array
      0 => string 'abcd' (length=4)
      1 => string 'efgh' (length=4)
      2 => string 'hijk' (length=4)

The SimpleXMLIterator class

Introduction

Class synopsis

Table of Contents

User Contributed Notes