simplexml_load_file not loading

Question

This link to an rss feed doesn't load with simplexml_load_file.

Link: http://www.nationnews.com/site/feed

The link is a valid RSS feed and no it isn't a permission problem everything else loads.

Please post the PHP code (snippet) you are using, as well as the intended results you want (which fields to parse). — ionFish, Feb 19 '13 at 23:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

1

The rss feed is gziped. This should do the trick:

$content =  file_get_contents("http://www.nationnews.com/site/feed/");
$rss = simplexml_load_string(gzinflate(substr($content,10,-8)));

See PHP: Call to undefined function gzdecode() for further details regarding the gzinflate.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Community

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answered Feb 19 '13 at 23:57

Corneliu

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Thanks, that was easy. Couldn't find the answer anywhere – user1807206 Feb 20 '13 at 21:07

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

First of all you need to enable error logging and/or reporting to find out more. Also you can check some parameters from the return value and the remote request:

$result = simplexml_load_file($url);

var_dump($result, $http_response_header);

This will tell you that loading failed, the error messages tell you why it failed:

PHP Warning: simplexml_load_file(): http://www.nationnews.com/site/feed/:1: parser error : Start tag expected, '<' not found in /example.php on line 10
PHP Warning: simplexml_load_file(): in /example.php on line 10
PHP Warning: simplexml_load_file(): ^ in /example.php on line 10

And the $http_response_header also show you the picture what has been returned from that host:

array(23) {
  [0]=> string(15) "HTTP/1.0 200 OK"
  [1]=> string(35) "Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:56:11 GMT"
  [2]=> string(30) "Server: Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS)"
  [3]=> string(23) "X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.3"
  [4]=> string(56) "Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=qeaq20mrvrc2u4c403sou6oro2; path=/"
  [5]=> string(38) "Expires: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:13:01 GMT"
  [6]=> string(50) "Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"
  [7]=> string(16) "Pragma: no-cache"
  [8]=> string(84) "Set-Cookie: exp_last_visit=1046015771; expires=Thu, 20-Feb-2014 10:56:11 GMT; path=/"
  [9]=> string(87) "Set-Cookie: exp_last_activity=1361375771; expires=Thu, 20-Feb-2014 10:56:11 GMT; path=/"
  [10]=> string(89) "Set-Cookie: exp_tracker=a%3A1%3A%7Bi%3A0%3Bs%3A11%3A%22%2Fsite%2Ffeed%2F%22%3B%7D; path=/"
  [11]=> string(44) "Last-Modified: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:13:01 GMT"
  [12]=> string(40) "Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0"
  [13]=> string(21) "Vary: Accept-Encoding"
  [14]=> string(16) "imagetoolbar: no"
  [15]=> string(17) "Connection: close"
  [16]=> string(37) "Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8"
  [17]=> string(76) "Set-Cookie: cookiesession1=HTEVZV0HJNK2HARUL2QBDADH8RXYESJB;Path=/;HttpOnly "
  [18]=> string(109) "Set-Cookie: exp_last_visit_cookiesession2=tSzDt6/k20k=;Expires=Thu, 20-Feb-2014 10:56:11 GMT;Path=/;HttpOnly "
  [19]=> string(112) "Set-Cookie: exp_last_activity_cookiesession2=e+FVcqI8+Ck=;Expires=Thu, 20-Feb-2014 10:56:11 GMT;Path=/;HttpOnly "
  [20]=> string(68) "Set-Cookie: exp_tracker_cookiesession2=w+13lT4TxY0=;Path=/;HttpOnly "
  [21]=> string(22) "Content-Encoding: gzip"
  [22]=> string(20) "content-length: 2463"
}

According to the HTTP specs that you make use of by using a HTTP uri, the content encoding is:

[21]=> string(22) "Content-Encoding: gzip"

This is not supported by PHP out of the box with it's HTTP Wrapper so you need to work around that your own

For example by using the zlib Stream Wrapper::

$result = simplexml_load_file('compress.zlib://' . $url);

Or with the help of the gzdecode function:

$result = simplexml_load_string(gzdecode(file_get_contents($url)));

Full example code with all the variants:

$url = 'http://www.nationnews.com/site/feed/';


// stream wrapper:

$result = simplexml_load_file('compress.zlib://' . $url);

var_dump($result, $http_response_header);


// gzdecode:

$result = simplexml_load_string(gzdecode(file_get_contents($url)));

var_dump($result, $http_response_header);


// none (the error case):

$result = simplexml_load_file($url);

var_dump($result, $http_response_header);

simplexml_load_file not loading

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