PHP: Using simplexml to loop through all levels of an XML file

Question

I have a function which uses simplexml to return the first level of nodes in an XML file and write it into an unordered list:

function printAssetMap() {
             


        

Answer 1

<?php
function all_nodes($xml){
    $all=array();
    function add($node){
        array_push($all,$node);
        foreach($node as $child){
            add($child);
        }
    }
    add($xml->documentElement);
    return $all;
}
?>

This will return an array with all nodes in the document.

Answer 2

you need to use a recursive function. here is an example that outputs an array from XML. It is from the PHP docs - http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.simplexml.php. You can amend this to output a list.

<?php 
function XMLToArray($xml) 
{ 
  if ($xml instanceof SimpleXMLElement) { 
    $children = $xml->children(); 
    $return = null; 
  } 

  foreach ($children as $element => $value) { 
    if ($value instanceof SimpleXMLElement) { 
      $values = (array)$value->children(); 

      if (count($values) > 0) { 
        $return[$element] = XMLToArray($value); 
      } else { 
        if (!isset($return[$element])) { 
          $return[$element] = (string)$value; 
        } else { 
          if (!is_array($return[$element])) { 
            $return[$element] = array($return[$element], (string)$value); 
          } else { 
            $return[$element][] = (string)$value; 
          } 
        } 
      } 
    } 
  } 

  if (is_array($return)) { 
    return $return; 
  } else { 
    return $false; 
  } 
} 
?>

Answer 3

So basically what you need to do is a function that takes each <asset/> child of current node, builds the HTML then checks if the current node has <asset/> children of its own and keeps recursing deeper down the tree.

Here's how you can do it:

function printAssetMap()
{
    return printAssets(simplexml_load_file(X_ASSETS));
}

function printAssets(SimpleXMLElement $parent)
{
    $html = "<ul>\n";
    foreach ($parent->asset as $asset)
    {
        $html .= printAsset($asset);
    }
    $html .= "</ul>\n";

    return $html;
}

function printAsset(SimpleXMLElement $asset)
{
    $html = '<li id="asset'.$asset->asset_assetid.'"><ins>&nbsp;</ins><a href="#">'.$asset->asset_name.' ['.$asset->asset_assetid.']</a>';

    if (isset($asset->asset))
    {
        // has <asset/> children
        $html .= printAssets($asset);
    }

    $html .= "</li>\n";

    return $html;
}

By the way, I would expect a function named "printX" to actually print or echo something, rather than return it. Perhaps you should name those functions "buildX" ?