Filtering XML file, with PHP

Question

I want to load XML file and then remove all where is bigger/older then 7 years. Date format is YYYY-MM-DD.

Answer 1

You can either use SimpleXML, DOM or XSL for it.

Example XML (shortened for brevity (from Revision 1 of your question)):

$xml = <<< XML

    
        1995-12-21
    
    
        2010-12-21
    

XML;

---

With SimpleXml

$sevenYearsAgo = new DateTime('-7 years');
$CriminalCase  = new SimpleXmlElement($xml);
for ($i = 0; $i < $CriminalCase->Charge->count(); $i++) {
    $dispositionDate = new DateTime($CriminalCase->Charge->DispositionDate);
    if ($dispositionDate < $sevenYearsAgo) {
        unset($CriminalCase->Charge[$i]);
    }
}
echo $CriminalCase->asXml();

---

With DOM

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadXml($xml);
$xpath = new DOMXPath($dom);
$oldCases = $xpath->query(
    sprintf(
        '//Charge[substring-before(DispositionDate, "-") < %d]',
        date('Y', strtotime('-7 years'))
    )
);
foreach ($oldCases as $oldCase) {
    $oldCase->parentNode->removeChild($oldCase);
}
echo $dom->saveXml();

---

With XSLT

and then use this PHP Code to transform it

$doc = new DOMDocument();
$xsl = new XSLTProcessor();
$doc->loadXml($xsl);
$xsl->importStyleSheet($doc);
$doc->loadXml($xml);
echo $xsl->transformToXML($doc);