Parsing XML data using php to put into mysql database.

Question

Hello, I have been asked to parse a simple file which is stored as an XML file, the data is to be then put into a mysql database.

However I have absolutely no clue what to do and after looking online all the examples given seem either too complicated for my problem or not the right solution. The XML file looks like this:

<shop>
<products>
    <product id="1" name="Cornetto" price="1.20" description="Traditional Cornetto" />
    <product id="2" name="Smarties" price="1.00" description="Smarties Icecream" />
</products>

<stocks>
    <stock id="1" amount="242" price="pounds" />
    <stock id="2" amount="11" price="pounds" />
</stocks>

I've tried looking at SimpleXML and I think that's the direction I have to go but I just have no idea.

Any help or pointers would be great.

Answer 1

Assuming the file is called data.xml

$string = file_get_contents('data.xml') reads the entire file into $string.

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string); parses that string, and converts it into an object tree similar to the actual document. So if that's the document -

<root>
  <b>
    <c>first</c>
    <c>second</c>
  </b>
</root>

The SimpleXMLElement object would be used like:

$xml->b              // gets all children of b (c[0] and c[1])
print $xml->b->c[0]  // gets the first c, will print "first"

Answer 2

You can use for example SimpleXMLElement and xpath

<?php
$xmlStr = <<<EOF
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<shop>
 <products>
    <product id="1" name="Cornetto" price="1.20" description="Traditional Cornetto" />
    <product id="2" name="Smarties" price="1.00" description="Smarties Icecream" />
 </products>
 <stocks>
    <stock id="1" amount="242" price="pounds" />
    <stock id="2" amount="11" price="pounds" />
 </stocks>
</shop>
EOF;

$xml=new SimpleXMLElement($xmlStr);

// get product line with xpath for example
$products=$xml->xpath("/shop/products/product");
if ($products) {
 // loop over each product node
 foreach ($products as $product) {
   // do whatever you want with the data
   echo("id=>".$product["id"].", name=>".$product["name"]."<br/>");
 }
}

// same for stock
// get product line with xpath for example
$stocks=$xml->xpath("/shop/stocks/stock");
if ($stocks) {
 // loop over each product node
 foreach ($stocks as $stock) {
   // do whatever you want with the data
   echo("id=>".$stock["id"].", amount=>".$stock["amount"]."<br/>");
 }
}

?>

Answer 3

I personally like the normal XMl formatting so I changed it since its a bit more readable but this is how you can use it:

$xmlstr = <<<XML
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<shop>
<products>
    <product>
        <id>1</id>
        <name>Cornetto</name>
        <price>1.20</price>
        <description>Traditional Cornetto</description>
    </product>
    <product>
        <id>2</id>
        <name>Smarties</name>
        <price>1.00</price>
        <description>Smarties Icecream</description>
    </product>
</products>
<stocks>
    <stock>
        <id>1</id>
        <amount>242</amount>
        <price>pounds</price>
    </stock>
    <stock>
        <id>2</id>
        <amount>11</amount>
        <price>pounds</price>
    </stock>
</stocks>
</shop>
XML;

Handling part:

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
echo 'single value: <br />';
echo $xml->products->product[0]->id; // get single value

echo '<br /><br />';

//Loop trough multiple products
echo 'multiple values: <br />';
foreach($xml->products->product as $product)
{
    echo $product->id.' - ';
    echo $product->name.' - ';
    echo $product->price.' - ';
    echo $product->description;
    echo '<br/>';
}

Answer 4

$xml = simplexml_load_file($filename);
foreach($xml->product as $product) {            

  foreach($product->attributes() as $name => $attribute) {
    echo "$name = $attribute";
  }         
}