Extract node from XML like data without extra PHP libs

Question

Hello all,

I am returned the following:

<links>
    <image_link>http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/9606/48444016.jpg&lt;/image_link&gt;
    <thumb_link>http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/9606/48444016.th.jpg&lt;/thumb_link&gt;
    <ad_link>http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=48444016.jpg&lt;/ad_link&gt;
    <thumb_exists>yes</thumb_exists>
    <total_raters>0</total_raters>
    <ave_rating>0.0</ave_rating>
    <image_location>img357/9606/48444016.jpg</image_location>
    <thumb_location>img357/9606/48444016.th.jpg</thumb_location>
    <server>img357</server>
    <image_name>48444016.jpg</image_name>
    <done_page>http://img357.imageshack.us/content.php?page=done&amp;amp;l=img357/9606/48444016.jpg&lt;/done_page&gt;
    <resolution>800x600</resolution>
    <filesize>38477</filesize>
    <image_class>r</image_class>
</links>

I wish to extract the image_link in PHP as simply and as easily as possible. How can I do this?

Assume, I can not make use of any extra libs/plugins for PHP. :)

Thanks all

Answer 1

use regular expressions

$text = 'string_input';
preg_match('/<image_link>([^<]+)</image_link>/gi', $text, $regs);
$result = $regs[0];

Answer 2

You can use SimpleXML as it is built in PHP.

Answer 3

At Josh's answer, the problem was not escaping the "/" character. So the code Josh submitted would become:

$text = 'string_input';
preg_match('/<image_link>([^<]+)<\/image_link>/gi', $text, $regs);
$result = $regs[0];

Taking usoban's answer, an example would be:

<?php

// Load the file into $content

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($content) or die('Error creating a SimpleXML instance');

$imagelink = (string) $xml->image_link; // This is the image link

?>

I recommend using SimpleXML because it's very easy and, as usoban said, it's builtin, that means that it doesn't need external libraries in any way.