PHP simple XML to array - minus character problem

Question

I have a XML file with data and run the following code:

<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_file("index.xml");
$result = $xml->xpath("product");

echo $result[0]->name . '<br />';
echo $result[0]->price . '<br />';
echo $result[0]->info-url . '<br />';
echo $result[0]->image-url . '<br />';
echo $result[0]->longdescription . '<br />';
?>

Part of my XML file

<product>
  <name>Test</name>
  <price>100</price>
  <info-url>http://www.test.com</info-url>
  <image-url>http://www.test.com/image.jpg</image-url>
</product>

I get this error:

"Notice: Use of undefined constant url - assumed 'url' in C:\wamp\www\concepts\xml-to-array\index.php on line 11"

It does not like the minus character. How do I get it?

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '11 at 19:43

8

The solution is to use the following:

$result[0]->{'image-url'}

and so on for all attributes with hyphens.

answered Mar 21 '11 at 19:43

Mike Lewis

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Gravy · Answer 2 · 2015-10-07T11:20:00.660

-1

Instead of xpath, I like using:

$url = "filename.xml";
$simple = simplexml_load_file($url);
$arr = json_decode( json_encode($simple) , 1);

I can then access elements by:

echo $arr['product']['image-url'];

According to comment, this is wasteful, however I would prefer to sacrifice a few kilobytes of memory / and a few microseconds in processing time for a cleaner means of navigation and significantly improved code readability. Especially when it comes to deeply nested xml files.

edited Oct 07 '15 at 11:20

answered Jun 27 '12 at 19:54

Gravy

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Encoding & decoding is waste of memory. SimpleXML library provides sufficient access to data (@Mike Lewis answer) – Minimihi Oct 07 '15 at 10:42
@Minimihi - Library provides sufficient access to the data, but the format in which it is returned is not intuitive. As such, I would prefer to sacrifice a few kilobytes of memory / and a few microseconds in processing time for a cleaner means of navigation and code readability. – Gravy Oct 07 '15 at 11:19

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 27 '13 at 18:14

-1

$arr = json_decode( json_encode($simple) , 1);

looks simple but generates bad array, ex.

<product>
  <name>Test</name>
  <price/>
</product>

returns "price" as empty subarray

[price] => Array
    (
    )

answered Mar 27 '13 at 18:14

adq82

29
1

PHP simple XML to array - minus character problem

3 Answers3