PHP - create VLC Playlist

Question

I'm currently trying to create a VLC playlist with PHP. This works pretty well with SimpleXML, but on one point I'm stuck. A VLC Playlist needs a starting tag like:

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

But Simple XML is always creating a xml tag around the whole element, which will look like

<xml>
    <tag></tag>
</xml>

But what i need is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="[...]" xmlns:vlc="[...]" version="1"> 
    <title>Test<title>
    <trackList>
        [...]
    </trackList>
</playlist>

How can i create a xml file like this with simpleXML?

just add your string() at the first of your xml output. – mortymacs May 01 '14 at 14:15 — mortymacs, May 01 '14 at 14:15

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

You miss some specifics about XML which drives you into wrong assumptions. Let's shed some light:

A VLC Playlist needs a starting tag like:

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

This is wrong in many ways. First of all this is not a starting tag. This is the so called XML Declaration. So it is not a starting tag but something different.

Second, VLC does not require this. The XML Declaration is optional so it is for VLC.

But Simple XML is always creating a xml tag around the whole element, which will look like

No, Simple XML is handling this fine. It does not create a xml tag around the whole element. What you did do actually was wrong, resulting into the wrong results. But that is not SimpleXML's fault in this case but your fault (you have not shared the code, so excuse the generalization I do here).

Then you ask how to create some XML file with SimpleXML. With the (little) information you've shared, it goes like this:

$playlist = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><playlist xmlns="uri:1" xmlns:vlc="uri:2" version="1"/>');
$playlist->title = 'Test';
$playlist->trackList = "[...]";
$playlist->asXML('php://output');

Output then is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="uri:1" xmlns:vlc="uri:2" version="1"><title>Test</title><trackList>[...]</trackList></playlist>

If you want it pretty-printed, see here: PHP simpleXML how to save the file in a formatted way?

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 15 '20 at 23:49

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><playlist></playlist>');
$trackList = $xml->addChild('trackList');
foreach ($_POST['files'] as $video) {
    $track = $trackList->addChild('track');
    $track->addChild('location', 'file://'.$tmp_dir.'/'.$video['path']);
    $track->addChild('title', $video['name']);
}
file_put_contents('playlist.xspf',$xml->asXML());

PHP - create VLC Playlist

2 Answers2