How to convert XML attributes to text nodes

Question

I have a PHP script that pulls an XML file from a remote server, and converts it to JSON using simplexml_load_string and json_encode. However, the simplexml_load_string seems t

Answer 1

Try this regex: ([\w]*?)="(.*?)" with this replace <$1>$2</$1>\n

Answer 2

You should use SimpleXML. Be aware though, that you have to cast values to string type explicitly, or you'll get objects.

$xml_string = <<<XML
<AxisFeedrate 
dataItemId="iid7" 
timestamp="2012-03-21T15:15:41-04:00" 
sequence="7" 
name="Yfrt" 
subType="ACTUAL" 
units="MILLIMETER/SECOND"
>UNAVAILABLE</AxisFeedrate>
XML;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);

$axis_info = array('value' => (string)$xml);

foreach($xml -> attributes() as $attr => $val) {
    $axis_info[$attr] = (string) $val;
}

echo json_encode(array("AxisFeedrate" => $axis_info));

Update:

This will give you a more generic version, but notice that the attributes are cast as an array and that this only works on a single element:

$xml_string = <<<XML
<AxisFeedrate dataItemId="iid7" timestamp="2012-03-21T15:15:41-04:00" sequence="7" name="Yfrt" subType="ACTUAL" units="MILLIMETER/SECOND">UNAVAILABLE</AxisFeedrate>
XML;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);

$obj_name = $xml -> getName();

$attributes = (array) $xml->attributes();

$axis_info[$obj_name] = $attributes["@attributes"];
$axis_info[$obj_name]['value'] = (string) $xml;

echo json_encode($axis_info);

Answer 3

You could use SimpleXML itself to read the attributes.

Example:

<?php
$xml=simplexml_load_string('<AxisFeedrate dataItemId="iid7" timestamp="2012-03-21T15:15:41-04:00" sequence="7" name="Yfrt" subType="ACTUAL" units="MILLIMETER/SECOND">UNAVAILABLE</AxisFeedrate>');

foreach($xml->attributes() as $k=>$v) {
    echo $k." -> ".(string)$v."\n";

}
?>

---

Output:

dataItemId -> iid7
timestamp -> 2012-03-21T15:15:41-04:00
sequence -> 7
name -> Yfrt
subType -> ACTUAL
units -> MILLIMETER/SECOND