Simple XML parser

Copy and paste the following code into your editor and run it (code comments are included).

If you want to see the live result (we believe this is the best way to learn what is the script about), try it here (new window).

The example xml file which is ISO-8859-1 encoded

This example reads an xml file and parses it to extract and layout desired dataset encoded in UTF-8.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<item>
<title>Title of item</title>
<author>Author name</author>
<date>Date of article</date>
<article>Content of an article</article>
</item>
<item>
<title>Title of item 2</title>
<author>Author name</author>
<date>Date of article 2</date>
<article>Content of article 2</article>
</item>
<item>
<title>Title of item 3</title>
<author>Author name</author>
<date>Date of article 3</date>
<article>Content of article 3</article>
</item>
</rss>

download the file

The source code

The parser.

<?

$cc=10;

$url = "example.xml";

//ELEMENTS TO RETRIEVE - YOU MUST KNOW THE TAG NAMES OF EACH ELEMENT - Can be improved using an array (next update):
$title='';
$author='';
$date='';
$article='';
$link='';

//Counter to start counting the number of items
$cz=0;

$data = file_get_contents($url);
$depth = array();

//The dataset will be stored inside this variable
$txt='';

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs)
{
	//we use global variables to keep track of each element while parsing the whole document
	global $cc,$cz,$txt;
    global $depth;
    global $tagname;
	global $title,$author,$date,$article,$link;

	if($cz < $cc)
	{
		/* display only if we find all items to display - updated here*/
		if(strlen(trim($article)) > 0  && strlen(trim($title)) > 0 && strlen(trim($author)) > 0 && strlen(trim($date)) > 0)
		{
			//at this level we have a NEW ITEM -> we increment to items' counter
			if($cz++ >= 1)
			{
				/*We display the dataset in the order we wish (see below to apply a different design)*/
				$txt.=$title.$author.$date.$article;
				$title='';
				$author='';
				$date='';
				$article='';
			}
		}

		$tagname=$name;
	}

	//one level deeper
	$depth[$parser]++;
}

function endElement($parser, $name)
{
    global $depth;
    global $tagname;
	$tagname='';

    $depth[$parser]--;

}

function characterData($parser, $ddata)
{
    global $tagname;
	global $cc,$cz,$txt;
	global $title,$author,$date,$article,$link;

	/*For each tag name we receive we only extract the wanted ones
	You can apply different layout to the data
	*/
	if($cz < $cc)
	{
		switch($tagname)
		{
			case 'TITLE':if(strlen(trim($ddata)) > 0) $title= '<tr><td style="width:40%;background-color:#fafafa;border-right:1px solid black" valign="top"><h3>'.utf8_encode($ddata).'</h3>';break;
			case 'AUTHOR':if(strlen(trim($ddata)) > 0) $author= '<u>Author</u>: '.utf8_encode($ddata);break;
			case 'DATE':if(strlen(trim($ddata)) > 0) $date= '<br /><i>Date</i>: '.utf8_encode($ddata).'</td>';break;
			case 'ARTICLE':if(strlen(trim($ddata)) > 0) $article= '<td>'.utf8_encode($ddata).'</td></tr>';break;
			default: break;
		}
	}

}

/*everything is triggered here - we parse the xml file and call the startElement & endElement functions, then the characterData function to read all content - the xml_parse line launches the procedure taking care of the arguments*/
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");

if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data))
die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",	xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));

xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

//We store the last elements
$txt.=$title.$author.$date.$article;


/*echo the result inside a table (you may write it into a file)*/
$txt= '<table cellpadding="5" style="border:1px solid black">'.$txt.'</table>';
echo $txt;
?>

download the file

- you need to have PHP 4 or above version of Php;
- you may call any remote xml/rss/atom files, but you need to know about the structure and tag names of the file.

You may wish to read additional materials from:
- function.xml-parser-create
- function.xml-set-element-handler
- function.xml-set-character-data-handler.php
- function.xml-parse.php
- php.net/global

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Simple XML parser

Simple XML parser

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