PHP simpleXML how to save the file in a formatted way?

Question

I'm trying add some data to an existing XML file using PHP's SimpleXML. The problem is it adds all the data in a single line:

<name>blah</name><class>blah</class><area>blah</area> ...

And so on. All in a single line. How to introduce line breaks?

How do I make it like this?

<name>blah</name>
<class>blah</class>
<area>blah</area>

I am using asXML() function.

Thanks.

There's also the PEAR [XML_Beautifier](http://pear.php.net/package/XML_Beautifier) package. — karim79, Apr 28 '09 at 17:22
I know this is quite old question and you must have found solution. May be useful for others, have a look at it https://github.com/spatie/array-to-xml — Vaibhav Malushte, Nov 19 '20 at 15:16

score 155 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 28 '09 at 17:16

155

You could use the DOMDocument class to reformat your code:

$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0');
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->formatOutput = true;
$dom->loadXML($simpleXml->asXML());
echo $dom->saveXML();

answered Apr 28 '09 at 17:16

Gumbo

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1

Thank you. Simple and efficient. – Andrei Duma Jul 03 '13 at 14:34
5

So it is not possible with SimpleXML? – Jonathan Nov 18 '14 at 07:52
@xcy7e No, I don’t think so. – Gumbo Nov 18 '14 at 07:57
1

When I tried to format content that I was appending to a file, it worked only if I specified preserveWhiteSpace and formatOutput before loading the existing content. – Sam May 19 '15 at 09:33

Witman · Answer 2 · 2009-11-25T03:14:35.743

Gumbo's solution does the trick. You can do work with simpleXml above and then add this at the end to echo and/or save it with formatting.

Code below echos it and saves it to a file (see comments in code and remove whatever you don't want):

//Format XML to save indented tree rather than one line
$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0');
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->formatOutput = true;
$dom->loadXML($simpleXml->asXML());
//Echo XML - remove this and following line if echo not desired
echo $dom->saveXML();
//Save XML to file - remove this and following line if save not desired
$dom->save('fileName.xml');

score 19 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 18 '13 at 19:30

19

Use dom_import_simplexml to convert to a DomElement. Then use its capacity to format output.

$dom = dom_import_simplexml($simple_xml)->ownerDocument;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->formatOutput = true;
echo $dom->saveXML();

edited Aug 18 '13 at 19:30

Eric

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answered Apr 28 '09 at 20:56

troelskn

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doesn't work. The function returns a DOMElement, not a DOMDocument – karka91 Aug 02 '12 at 13:18
Seems `documentElement` should be `ownerDocument`. Not sure if the api changed or this is just a typo. I've corrected it now. – troelskn Aug 02 '12 at 13:30
3

please note that this still doesn't work as the preserveWhiteSpace and formatOutput should be set _before_ importing the document to have any effect :) – karka91 Aug 02 '12 at 13:48
Interesting - right you are. Looks like Gumbo's answer will work though. – troelskn Aug 02 '12 at 18:27

score 2 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

As Gumbo and Witman answered; loading and saving an XML document from an existing file (we're a lot of newbies around here) with DOMDocument::load and DOMDocument::save.

<?php
$xmlFile = 'filename.xml';
if( !file_exists($xmlFile) ) die('Missing file: ' . $xmlFile);
else
{
  $dom = new DOMDocument('1.0');
  $dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
  $dom->formatOutput = true;
  $dl = @$dom->load($xmlFile); // remove error control operator (@) to print any error message generated while loading.
  if ( !$dl ) die('Error while parsing the document: ' . $xmlFile);
  echo $dom->save($xmlFile);
}
?>

PHP simpleXML how to save the file in a formatted way?

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