Get XML Attribute with SimpleXML

Question

I\'m trying to get the $xml->entry->yt:statistics->attributes()->viewCount attribute, and I\'ve tried some stuff with SimpleXML, and I can\'t really

Answer 1

The yt: prefix marks that element as being in a different "XML namespace" from the rest of the document. You have to tell SimpleXML to switch to that namespace using the ->children() method.

The line you were attempting should actually look like this:

echo (string)$xml->entry[0]->children('yt', true)->statistics->attributes(NULL)->viewCount;

To break this down:

• (string) - this is just a good habit: you want the string contents of the attribute, not a SimpleXML object representing it
• $xml->entry[0] - as expected
• ->children('yt', true) - switch to the namespace with the local alias 'yt'
• ->statistics - as expected
• ->attributes(NULL) - technically, the attribute "viewCount" is back in the default namespace, because it is not prefixed with "yt:", so we have to switch back in order to see it
• ->viewCount - running ->attributes() gives us nothing but attributes, which are accessed with ->foo not ['foo']

Answer 2

If you just want to get the viewcount of a youtube video then you have to specify the video ID. The youtube ID is found in each video url. For example "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccI-MugndOU" so the id is ccI-MugndOU. In order to get the viewcount then try the code below

$sample_video_ID = "ccI-MugndOU";
$JSON = file_get_contents("http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q={$sample_video_ID}&alt=json");
$JSON_Data = json_decode($JSON);
$views = $JSON_Data->{'feed'}->{'entry'}[0]->{'yt$statistics'}->{'viewCount'};
    echo $views;

Answer 3

I would use the gdata component from the zend framework. Is also available as a separate module, so you don't need to use the whole zend.