Access instance variables with special characters

Question

Using SimpleXML in PHP, I would like to grab ONLY the <lj:reply-count> node value.

XML:

<lj:security>public</lj:security>
<lj:posterid>631636</lj:posterid>
<lj:reply-count>42</lj:reply-count>

Sort of like this, but obviously not exactly this since it will throw php parse errors

if($item->lj:reply-count)
    $replyCount = $item->lj:reply-count

I tried a few other variations and Google'd around, but couldn't seem to find what I'm looking for. Thanks.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 25 '14 at 04:18

1

Since your xml has namespaces, you have to use ->children() method for that. Example:

$xml_string = <<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root xmlns:lj="http://www.example.com/">
<lj:security>public</lj:security>
<lj:posterid>631636</lj:posterid>
<lj:reply-count>42</lj:reply-count>
</root>
XML;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
$lj = $xml->children('lj', 'http://www.example.com/');
$reply_count = (string) $lj->{'reply-count'};

echo $reply_count; // 42

answered Jul 25 '14 at 04:18

Kevin

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Can i call children() recursively? For instance, calling $item->children() where $item is a specific item node? I dont see why i couldn't (no access to my code atm) – EyeOfTheHawks Jul 25 '14 at 04:24
@EyeOfTheHawks what do you mean by that? are you going to use this inside a loop? it's really hard to analyze things on this side since there's no context and obviously the xml is somewhat truncated. this method returns (returns another set of xml object) the children of that given nodes, this does not access directly your specifically desired item node – Kevin Jul 25 '14 at 04:28
That answers my question, thank you. I will accept one of these answers tomorrow when i am able to fully test them :D – EyeOfTheHawks Jul 25 '14 at 04:30
@EyeOfTheHawks if you want them directly, maybe you could just use something like `echo $xml->children('lj', 'http://www.example.com/')->{'reply-count'}; // echoes 42` – Kevin Jul 25 '14 at 04:31

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 24 '14 at 20:37

0

This should work:

if($item->{"lj:reply-count"})
    $replyCount = $item->{"lj:reply-count"}

answered Jul 24 '14 at 20:37

idmean

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I'll give it a try. It makes sense though, I didnt think to wrap the string as an object – EyeOfTheHawks Jul 24 '14 at 20:40
Why wrap the string as an object? That's the curly brace syntax: http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.parsing.complex – idmean Jul 24 '14 at 20:41
Oops thats what i meant, not wrap as an object. Too much javascript lately. -.- – EyeOfTheHawks Jul 24 '14 at 20:43

Access instance variables with special characters

2 Answers2