XML 解析器函数
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xml_parse_into_struct

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

xml_parse_into_struct将 XML 数据解析到数组中

说明

int xml_parse_into_struct ( resource $parser , string $data , array &$values [, array &$index ] )

该函数将 XML 文件解析到两个对应的数组中,index 参数含有指向 values 数组中对应值的指针。最后两个数组参数可由指针传递给函数。

Note:

xml_parse_into_struct() 失败返回 0,成功返回 1。这和 FALSETRUE 不同,使用例如 === 的运算符时要注意。

以下范例显示了由该函数生成的数组的内部结构。我们简单地将一个 note 嵌入到一个 para 标记中,解析后我们可以打印出生成的数组的结构:

Example #1 xml_parse_into_struct() 示例

<?php
$simple 
"<para><note>simple note</note></para>";
$p xml_parser_create();
xml_parse_into_struct($p$simple$vals$index);
xml_parser_free($p);
echo 
"Index array\n";
print_r($index);
echo 
"\nVals array\n";
print_r($vals);
?>

运行以上代码,我们得到的输出将是:

Index array
Array
(
    [PARA] => Array
        (
            [0] => 0
            [1] => 2
        )

    [NOTE] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1
        )

)

Vals array
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [tag] => PARA
            [type] => open
            [level] => 1
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [tag] => NOTE
            [type] => complete
            [level] => 2
            [value] => simple note
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [tag] => PARA
            [type] => close
            [level] => 1
        )

)

如果您的 XML 文档很复杂,基于该文档的事件处理(Event-driven)解析(基于 expat 扩展库)也会对应的变得复杂。该函数生成的并非 DOM 风格的对象,而是横向的树状结构。因此,我们能够方便的建立表达 XML 文件数据的对象。我们假设以下 XML 文件表示一个关于氨基酸信息的小型数据库:

Example #2 moldb.xml - 分子信息的小型数据库

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<moldb>

    <molecule>
        <name>Alanine</name>
        <symbol>ala</symbol>
        <code>A</code>
        <type>hydrophobic</type>
    </molecule>

    <molecule>
        <name>Lysine</name>
        <symbol>lys</symbol>
        <code>K</code>
        <type>charged</type>
    </molecule>

</moldb>
以下是解析该文档并生成相应对象的代码:

Example #3 parsemoldb.php - 将 moldb.xml 解析到分子(molecular)对象的数组中

<?php

class AminoAcid {
    var 
$name;  // aa 姓名
    
var $symbol;    // 三字母符号
    
var $code;  // 单字母代码
    
var $type;  // hydrophobic, charged 或 neutral

    
function AminoAcid ($aa)
    {
        foreach (
$aa as $k=>$v)
            
$this->$k $aa[$k];
    }
}

function 
readDatabase($filename)
{
    
// 读取 aminoacids 的 XML 数据
    
$data implode("",file($filename));
    
$parser xml_parser_create();
    
xml_parser_set_option($parserXML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING0);
    
xml_parser_set_option($parserXML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE1);
    
xml_parse_into_struct($parser$data$values$tags);
    
xml_parser_free($parser);

    
// 遍历 XML 结构
    
foreach ($tags as $key=>$val) {
        if (
$key == "molecule") {
            
$molranges $val;
            
// each contiguous pair of array entries are the
            // lower and upper range for each molecule definition
            
for ($i=0$i count($molranges); $i+=2) {
                
$offset $molranges[$i] + 1;
                
$len $molranges[$i 1] - $offset;
                
$tdb[] = parseMol(array_slice($values$offset$len));
            }
        } else {
            continue;
        }
    }
    return 
$tdb;
}

function 
parseMol($mvalues)
{
    for (
$i=0$i count($mvalues); $i++) {
        
$mol[$mvalues[$i]["tag"]] = $mvalues[$i]["value"];
    }
    return new 
AminoAcid($mol);
}

$db readDatabase("moldb.xml");
echo 
"** Database of AminoAcid objects:\n";
print_r($db);

?>
在执行完 parsemoldb.php 后,变量 $db 将包含有一个由 AminoAcid 对象组成的数组,该脚本的输出如下:
** Database of AminoAcid objects:
Array
(
    [0] => aminoacid Object
        (
            [name] => Alanine
            [symbol] => ala
            [code] => A
            [type] => hydrophobic
        )

    [1] => aminoacid Object
        (
            [name] => Lysine
            [symbol] => lys
            [code] => K
            [type] => charged
        )

)


XML 解析器函数
在线手册:中文 英文
PHP手册
PHP手册 - N: 将 XML 数据解析到数组中

用户评论:

CyberSEO.net (05-Mar-2012 07:15)

Here is my World's smallest (I hope so :)) RSS parser with optional caching capabilities.

<?php
// The World's smallest RSS feed parser by CyberSEO.net (contacts: http://www.cyberseo.net/#contacts)
// Put your RSS feed URL here:
$feed = "http://rt.com/news/today/rss/";
// Assign the local path to your optional cache file (e.g. cache.txt) which must be writable by the script.
$filename = "cache.txt";
// The default cache refresh time is set to one hour (60 * 60), but you can change it to any other value.
if (file_exists($filename) && filesize($filename) && (time() - filectime($filename)) < 60 * 60) {
   
$content = file_get_contents($filename);
} else {
   
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
   
xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, file_get_contents($feed), $vals, $index);
   
// The maximum number of displayed items is limited by 5. Change it to whatever you want.
   
$cnt = min(5, count($index["TITLE"]));
   
$content = "";
    for (
$i = 1; $i <= $cnt; $i++) {
       
$content .= "<h3>" . html_entity_decode($vals[$index["TITLE"][$i]]["value"], ENT_QUOTES) . "</h3>\n";
       
$content .= "<p>" . html_entity_decode($vals[$index["DESCRIPTION"][$i]]["value"], ENT_QUOTES) . "</p>\n";
    }
   
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
   
file_put_contents($filename, $content, LOCK_EX);
}
echo
$content;
?>

Just place this code somewhere into your PHP file and it will parse the given feed. Perhaps somebody will find it useful.

sujithfem at gmail dot com (26-Oct-2009 09:46)

following function use to get the value for given XML tag

<?php
function getXmlValueByTag($inXmlset,$needle){
       
$resource    =    xml_parser_create();//Create an XML parser
       
xml_parse_into_struct($resource, $inXmlset, $outArray);// Parse XML data into an array structure
       
xml_parser_free($resource);//Free an XML parser
       
       
for($i=0;$i<count($outArray);$i++){
            if(
$outArray[$i]['tag']==strtoupper($needle)){
               
$tagValue    =    $outArray[$i]['value'];
            }
        }
        return
$tagValue;
    }

    echo
getXmlValueByTag($inXmlset,$needle);
?>

Adam Tylmad (30-Apr-2009 08:59)

Thanx to jukea i've upgraded the characterData-function to allow the value 0. Here is the new complete code:

<?php

class XMLParser {
    var
$path;
    var
$result;

    function
cleanString($string) {
        return
trim(str_replace("'", "&#39;", $string));
    }
  
    function
XMLParser($encoding, $data) {
       
$this->path = "\$this->result";
       
$this->index = 0;
      
       
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create($encoding);
       
xml_set_object($xml_parser, &$this);
       
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, 'startElement', 'endElement');
       
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, 'characterData');

       
xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, true);
       
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
    }
  
    function
startElement($parser, $tag, $attributeList) {
       
$this->path .= "->".$tag;
        eval(
"\$data = ".$this->path.";");
        if (
is_array($data)) {
           
$index = sizeof($data);
           
$this->path .= "[".$index."]";
        } else if (
is_object($data)) {
            eval(
$this->path." = array(".$this->path.");");
           
$this->path .= "[1]";
        }

        foreach(
$attributeList as $name => $value)
            eval(
$this->path."->".$name. " = '".XMLParser::cleanString($value)."';");
    }
  
    function
endElement($parser, $tag) {
       
$this->path = substr($this->path, 0, strrpos($this->path, "->"));
    }
  
    function
characterData($parser, $data) {
        if (
strlen($data = XMLParser::cleanString($data)))
            eval(
$this->path." = '$data';");
    }
}

?>

Adam Tylmad (30-Apr-2009 08:58)

Thanx to jukea i've upgraded the characterData-function to allow the value 0. Here is the new complete code:

<?php

class XMLParser {
    var
$path;
    var
$result;

    function
cleanString($string) {
        return
trim(str_replace("'", "&#39;", $string));
    }
  
    function
XMLParser($encoding, $data) {
       
$this->path = "\$this->result";
       
$this->index = 0;
      
       
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create($encoding);
       
xml_set_object($xml_parser, &$this);
       
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, 'startElement', 'endElement');
       
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, 'characterData');

       
xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, true);
       
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
    }
  
    function
startElement($parser, $tag, $attributeList) {
       
$this->path .= "->".$tag;
        eval(
"\$data = ".$this->path.";");
        if (
is_array($data)) {
           
$index = sizeof($data);
           
$this->path .= "[".$index."]";
        } else if (
is_object($data)) {
            eval(
$this->path." = array(".$this->path.");");
           
$this->path .= "[1]";
        }

        foreach(
$attributeList as $name => $value)
            eval(
$this->path."->".$name. " = '".XMLParser::cleanString($value)."';");
    }
  
    function
endElement($parser, $tag) {
       
$this->path = substr($this->path, 0, strrpos($this->path, "->"));
    }
  
    function
characterData($parser, $data) {
        if (
strlen($data = XMLParser::cleanString($data)))
            eval(
$this->path." = '$data';");
    }
}

?>

aerik at thesylvans dot com (28-Nov-2008 11:55)

Here's another attempt at dealing with rebuilding the xml from the array.  I'm basically preventing certain tags from being self closing by just checking for them explicitly (sure wish expat didn't interpret <textarea /> and <textarea></textarea> the same way (as "complete" tags).

<?php
function array2xml($xmlary){
 
$o='';
  foreach(
$xmlary as $tag ){
    if(
$tag['tag'] == 'textarea' && !isset($tag['value'])){
     
//fake a value so it won't self close
     
$tag['value']='';
    }
   
//tab space:
   
$t = '';
    for(
$i=1; $i < $tag['level'];$i++){
     
$t.="\t";
    }
    switch(
$tag['type']){
      case
'complete':
      case
'open':
       
$o.=$t.'<'.$tag['tag'];
        if(isset(
$tag['attributes'])){
          foreach(
$tag['attributes'] as $attr=>$aval){
           
$o.=' '.$attr.'="'.$aval.'"';
          }
//foreach
       
}//attributes
       
if($tag['type'] == 'complete'){
          if(!isset(
$tag['value'])){
           
$o .= ' />'."\n";
          } else {
           
$o .= '>'."\n".$t.$tag['value']."\n".$t.'</'.$tag['tag'].'>'."\n";
          }
        }else{
         
$o .= '>'."\n";
        }
        break;
      case
'close':
       
$o .= $t.'</'.$tag['tag'].'>'."\n";
        break;
      case
'cdata':
       
$o .= $t.$tag['value']."\n";
        break;
    }
//switch
 
}//foreach
}
?>

lpatrick (03-Nov-2008 12:36)

@ dale at ucsc dot edu
I modified your code for entries like <caption>Value</caption>
<?php
$o
='';
foreach(
$vals as $tag ){
   
//tab space:
   
for($i=1; $i < $tag['level'];$i++)
       
$o.="\t";
    if(
$tag['type']!='close'){
        if(
$tag['type']!='cdata')
           
$o.='<'.$tag['tag'];
        if(isset(
$tag['attributes'])){
            foreach(
$tag['attributes'] as $attr=>$aval){
               
$o.=' '.$attr.'="'.$aval.'"';
            }
        }
        if(
$tag['type']!='cdata'){
           
$o.=($tag['type']=='complete' && (!isset($tag['value']) || $tag['value']==''))?'/>':'>';
        }
       
$o.=(isset($tag['value']))?$tag['value']:'';
        if(
$tag['type']!='cdata'){
           
$o.=($tag['type']=='complete' && (isset($tag['value']) && $tag['value']<>''))?'</'.$tag['tag'].'>':'';
        }
       
$o.="\n";
    }else{
       
$o.='</'.$tag['tag'].'>'."\n";
    }
}
?>

dale at ucsc dot edu (26-Sep-2008 12:16)

here you can [re]assemble xml from a xml_parse_into_struct generated array: ie array2xml

<?php
$xml_parser
= xml_parser_create( 'UTF-8' ); // UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1
xml_parser_set_option( $xml_parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0 );
xml_parser_set_option( $xml_parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1 );
xml_parse_into_struct( $xml_parser, $my_text_xml, $aryXML );
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

//now use aryXML array to xml string:
       
$o='';
        foreach(
$aryXML as $tag ){
           
//tab space:
           
for($i=1; $i < $tag['level'];$i++)
               
$o.="\t";
            if(
$tag['type']!='close'){
                if(
$tag['type']!='cdata')
                   
$o.='<'.$tag['tag'];
                if(isset(
$tag['attributes'])){               
                    foreach(
$tag['attributes'] as $attr=>$aval){
                       
$o.=' '.$attr.'="'.$aval.'"';
                    }
                }
                if(
$tag['type']!='cdata'){
                   
$o.=($tag['type']=='complete')?'/>'."\n":'>'."\n";
                }
               
$o.=(isset($tag['value']))?$tag['value']:'';
            }else{
               
$o.='</'.$tag['tag'].'>';
            }               
        }
?>

Llorenc (09-Sep-2008 11:20)

Sorry, forgot my last post below, I confused CDATA sections (<![CDATA[]]>) with the value type "cdata", which despite its name it's very different! The first allows adding markup (&,<,>) as regular text and the second is to indicate a not complete node between the open and close nodes. What is true is that the CDATA delimiters are lost after xml_parse_into_struct so it's not possible to revert the process.

Please, feel free to remove my comments or leave them if you think they can help anyone.

Llorenc (09-Sep-2008 02:08)

Many examples below using this function check if a given tag returned is of type "cdata". It seems to me nowadays CDATA sections are not detected by all implementations, if any. In the servers I could test (FreeBSD 6.2 with PHP 5.2.6 and libxml 2.6.26 or PHP 4.4.8 and expat 2.0.0 - MacOSX 10.5.4 with PHP 5.2.6 and libxml 2.6.16) my CDATA sections were reported as being of type "complete".

This problem was reported earlier as a bug (#26188), but was discarded because "the behaviour is quite dependent on the backend XML parsing implementation" (sic).

So if you want to detect CDATA sections and not depend on a given implementation, you'll have to forget this function and use xml_parse and xml_set_character_data_handler instead.

POST at PSPAETH dot DE (14-Aug-2008 04:45)

I wrote a simple function which totally flattens any xml structure. You can then directly get the data or use regular expression functions to fetch data from the output. E.g., if the input is
   <gallery xmlns='http://www.pspaeth.de/joomlaPlugins/psg'>
        <g imageDir='einsatzGallerie'></g>
          <caption for="f1.jpg"}This is picture number 1</caption>
          <caption for="f2.jpg"}This is picture number 2</caption>
        </g>
   </gallery>
the output will be an array:
   ['.gallery0@xmlns']=> 
      ".gallery0@xmlns=http://www.pspaeth.de/joomlaPlugins/psg"
   ['.gallery0.g0@imageDir']=>
      ".gallery0.g0@imageDir=einsatzGallerie"
   ['.gallery0.g0.caption0@for']=>
      ".gallery0.g0.caption0@for=f1.jpg"
   ['.gallery0.g0.caption0']=>
      ".gallery0.g0.caption0=This is picture number 1"
   ['.gallery0.g0.caption1@for']=> 
      ".gallery0.g0.caption1@for=f2.jpg"
   ['.gallery0.g0.caption1']=> 
      ".gallery0.g0.caption1=This is picture number 2"

Here the code:
<?php
function _xmlToArray($xml) {
  
$parser = xml_parser_create('UTF-8'); // UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1
  
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
  
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
  
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $xml, $values);
  
xml_parser_free($parser);
    
  
$return = array();
  
$stack = '';
  
$attrs = array();
  
$levelCounters = array(0);
   foreach(
$values as $val) {
     if(
$val['type'] == "open") {
      
$ind = array_pop($levelCounters);
      
$stack = $stack . "." . $val['tag'] . $ind;
       if (
$val['attributes']) {
           foreach(
$val['attributes'] as $attrKey => $attrVal)
            
$return[$stack . '@' . $attrKey] = $stack . '@' . $attrKey . "=" .
               
$attrVal;
       }
      
array_push($levelCounters,$ind+1);
      
array_push($levelCounters,0);          
     } elseif(
$val['type'] == "close") {
      
$stack = substr($stack,0,strrpos($stack,'.'));
     } elseif(
$val['type'] == "complete") {
      
$ind = array_pop($levelCounters);
      
$stack = $stack . "." . $val['tag'] . $ind;
       if (
$val['attributes']) {
           foreach(
$val['attributes'] as $attrKey => $attrVal)
            
$return[$stack . '@' . $attrKey] = $stack . '@' . $attrKey . "=" .
               
$attrVal;
       }
      
$return[$stack] = $stack . "=" . $val['value'];
      
$stack = substr($stack,0,strrpos($stack,'.'));
      
array_push($levelCounters,$ind+1);
     }
   }
   return
$return;
}  
?>

wickedfather at hotmail dot com (06-Jul-2008 08:33)

Had a comment up that was removed saying I'd found drawbacks, but here's a class what I wrote which works fine for me.  Comments removed due to post restrictions.  Pass the xml into the parse method or in the constructor.  Php4 and 5 safe.

class XMLThing
{
    var $rawXML;
    var $valueArray = array();
    var $keyArray = array();
    var $parsed = array();
    var $index = 0;
    var $attribKey = 'attributes';
    var $valueKey = 'value';
    var $cdataKey = 'cdata';
    var $isError = false;
    var $error = '';

    function XMLThing($xml = NULL)
    {
        $this->rawXML = $xml;
    }

    function parse($xml = NULL)
    {
        if (!is_null($xml))
        {
            $this->rawXML = $xml;
        }

        $this->isError = false;
           
        if (!$this->parse_init())
        {
            return false;
        }

        $this->index = 0;
        $this->parsed = $this->parse_recurse();
        $this->status = 'parsing complete';

        return $this->parsed;
    }

    function parse_recurse()
    {       
        $found = array();
        $tagCount = array();

        while (isset($this->valueArray[$this->index]))
        {
            $tag = $this->valueArray[$this->index];
            $this->index++;

            if ($tag['type'] == 'close')
            {
                return $found;
            }

            if ($tag['type'] == 'cdata')
            {
                $tag['tag'] = $this->cdataKey;
                $tag['type'] = 'complete';
            }

            $tagName = $tag['tag'];

            if (isset($tagCount[$tagName]))
            {       
                if ($tagCount[$tagName] == 1)
                {
                    $found[$tagName] = array($found[$tagName]);
                }
                   
                $tagRef =& $found[$tagName][$tagCount[$tagName]];
                $tagCount[$tagName]++;
            }
            else   
            {
                $tagCount[$tagName] = 1;
                $tagRef =& $found[$tagName];
            }

            switch ($tag['type'])
            {
                case 'open':
                    $tagRef = $this->parse_recurse();

                    if (isset($tag['attributes']))
                    {
                        $tagRef[$this->attribKey] = $tag['attributes'];
                    }
                       
                    if (isset($tag['value']))
                    {
                        if (isset($tagRef[$this->cdataKey]))   
                        {
                            $tagRef[$this->cdataKey] = (array)$tagRef[$this->cdataKey];   
                            array_unshift($tagRef[$this->cdataKey], $tag['value']);
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            $tagRef[$this->cdataKey] = $tag['value'];
                        }
                    }
                    break;

                case 'complete':
                    if (isset($tag['attributes']))
                    {
                        $tagRef[$this->attribKey] = $tag['attributes'];
                        $tagRef =& $tagRef[$this->valueKey];
                    }

                    if (isset($tag['value']))
                    {
                        $tagRef = $tag['value'];
                    }
                    break;
            }           
        }

        return $found;
    }

    function parse_init()
    {
        $this->parser = xml_parser_create();

        $parser = $this->parser;
        xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);    
        xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);       
        if (!$res = (bool)xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $this->rawXML, $this->valueArray, $this->keyArray))
        {
            $this->isError = true;
            $this->error = 'error: '.xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($parser)).' at line '.xml_get_current_line_number($parser);
        }
        xml_parser_free($parser);

        return $res;
    }
}

Anonymous (02-Jul-2008 04:35)

@jemptymethod:

I found only one downfall to your function. If you have duplicates, the first one cannot be accessed iteratively.

I added the following to fix the problem:

<?php
...
        else if (
is_array($parent['children'][$tag])) {
            if(!isset(
$parent['children'][$tag][0])) {
               
$oldSingle = $parent['children'][$tag];
               
$parent['children'][$tag] = null;
               
$parent['children'][$tag][] = $oldSingle;
               
            }
             
$parent['children'][$tag][] = $pop['children'];
        }
...
?>

jemptymethod at gmail dot com (16-Jun-2008 09:39)

@wickedfather, re: beaudurrant....I just cannot concur that the latter's class is "great"....First of all, it doesn't handle attributes.  Second of all, as my code below demonstrates, there is no need waste processing by determining duplicates within their own loop.  Thirdly, when there are duplicates, it collapses the layer in the array above the duplicates.

Here is some much more consise code, though not (yet) object oriented, and also not yet handling attributes; it maintains a stack for each level:

<?php
function xml_parse_into_assoc($file) {
 
$data = implode("", file($file));
 
$p = xml_parser_create();
 
 
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
 
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
 
 
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $data, $vals, $index);
 
xml_parser_free($p);

 
$levels = array(null);
 
  foreach (
$vals as $val) {
    if (
$val['type'] == 'open' || $val['type'] == 'complete') {
      if (!
array_key_exists($val['level'], $levels)) {
       
$levels[$val['level']] = array();
      }
    }
   
   
$prevLevel =& $levels[$val['level'] - 1];
   
$parent = $prevLevel[sizeof($prevLevel)-1];
   
    if (
$val['type'] == 'open') {
     
$val['children'] = array();
     
array_push(&$levels[$val['level']], $val);
      continue;
    }
   
    else if (
$val['type'] == 'complete') {
     
$parent['children'][$val['tag']] = $val['value'];
    }
   
    else if (
$val['type'] == 'close') {
     
$pop = array_pop($levels[$val['level']]);
     
$tag = $pop['tag'];
     
      if (
$parent) {
        if (!
array_key_exists($tag, $parent['children'])) {
         
$parent['children'][$tag] = $pop['children'];
        }
        else if (
is_array($parent['children'][$tag])) {
         
$parent['children'][$tag][] = $pop['children'];
        }
      }
      else {
        return(array(
$pop['tag'] => $pop['children']));
      }
    }
   
   
$prevLevel[sizeof($prevLevel)-1] = $parent;
  }
}
?>

jukea (18-Apr-2008 10:09)

concerning Adam Tylmad's code, note that the line

 if ($data = xml::cleanString($data))

prevents 0 values to be considered, as this will evaluate to false. I just tracked down this bug in our system .. ouch

wickedfather at hotmail dot com (12-Apr-2008 04:36)

To beaudurrant - that class is great and structures things in a very sensible way.  Only problem is that it raises an error if a tag is empty, so would suggest a simple mod to the parse method just to add an isset test.

if (isset($val['value']))
{
    $this->setArrayValue($this->output, $stack, $val['value']);
}

mathiasrav at gmail dot com (10-Mar-2008 04:42)

In response to Anonymous' post at 26-Feb-2008 11:50:

Saying that you "don't understand everything" isn't going to get you very popular - you should understand the code you use.
foreach isn't *slow* in PHP, it is actually faster than the equivalent for-construct (which, in many cases, isn't available).

The reason your script is slow is simply your use of xml_parse_into_struct - it reads the whole XML-string and doesn't return until it has parsed and validated it all. If you're looking for efficiency, you'll have to use the more low-level xml_parser_create, xml_set_*_handler functions. Then make sure you don't keep everything in a huge array before outputting it (at least don't if you're going for efficiency).

Anonymous (26-Feb-2008 10:50)

Hi, I actually use this parser without understanding everything. I read somewhere that using "foreach" is very slow, and I indeed noticed that this parser was slow, when getting a lot of data, so how should I edit it to make it faster ? (with the exact same output) thanks in advance

    $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
    $data = $outputone;
   
    xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $data, $vals, $index);
    xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
   
    $params = array();
    $level = array();
    $i="1";
   
    foreach ($vals as $xml_elem) {
        if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open' && $xml_elem['level'] == '1') {
                $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
        }
        if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open' && $xml_elem['level'] == '2') {
                $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag']."".$i;
                $i++;
        }       
        if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
            $start_level = 1;
            $php_stmt = '$params';
            while($start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
                $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
                $start_level++;
            }
            $php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
                eval($php_stmt);
        }
    }

cesaralcaide at gmail dot com (10-Jan-2008 10:35)

I didn't fount an appropiate xml2array translaction for my purpose, so I wrote this:

(convert an xml string to an associative array allowing multiple elements with the same name)

/////////////////////////////////// Inicio XML
//
//
//
// Convierte un XML en un array asociativo cuyos elementos son arrays
// (para permitir varios elementos del mismo nombre)
//
// Limitación: el elemento "attributos" no puede aparecer en el XML, pues corresponde al
// de attribs de un tag (un Tag empieza con "T",no "t")
//
////////////////////////////////////

function xml_analiza($xml) {
 global $xml_resul,$xml_n,$xml_cont,$xml_attr;
 $xml_n = 0;
 $xml_resul = array();
 $xml_cont = array();
 $xml_attr = array();
 $p = xml_parser_create();
 //Si quisiéramos distinguir Mayúsculas-Minúsculas en los nombres de etiquetas:
 xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
 xml_set_element_handler($p, "xml_inicio", "xml_fin");
 xml_set_character_data_handler($p, "xml_char");

 // Recorta hasta el primer tag del XML:
 $i = instr($xml,"<" . "?xml");
 if (!$i) return array();
 $j = instr($i,$xml,"?" . ">");
 if (!$j) return array();
 $xml = substr($xml,$j+2);

 if (!xml_parse($p, $xml))
  alarma("URG","xml_analiza","XML error: " . xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($p))
   . " en la línea " . xml_get_current_line_number($p) . " ($xml)");
 xml_parser_free($p);
 if (!sizeof($xml_resul)) return array();
 return $xml_resul[0];
}

function xml_inicio($p, $nombre, $atributos) {
 global $xml_resul,$xml_n,$xml_cont,$xml_attr;
 $xml_n++;
 $xml_resul[] = array();
 $xml_cont[] = "";
 $xml_attr[] = $atributos;
}

function xml_fin($p, $nombre) {
 global $xml_resul,$xml_n,$xml_cont,$xml_attr;
 $xml_n--;
 $nuevo = array_pop($xml_resul);
 $nombre = $nombre;
 if ($nombre == "attributos") alarma("URG","xml_analiza","Tag con nombre no permitido (attributos)");
 $conte = array_pop($xml_cont);
 $attrib = array_pop($xml_attr);
 if ($conte) $xml_resul[$xml_n][$nombre][] = $conte;
 else {
  if ($nuevo) {
   if ($attrib) $nuevo["attributos"][] = $attrib;
   $xml_resul[$xml_n][$nombre][] = $nuevo;
  }
  else
   $xml_resul[$xml_n][$nombre][] = "";
 }
}

function xml_char($p, $data) {
 global $xml_cont;
 $xml_cont[sizeof($xml_cont)-1] .= trim(str_replace("\n","",$data));
}

function xml_a($a) {
 // Devuelve un elemento del array XML, p.e.: xml_a($v,"FichaCircuito","Red",0)
 $n = func_num_args();
 for ($i=1;$i<$n;$i++) {
  $b = func_get_arg($i);
  if (isset($a[$b]))
   $a = $a[$b];
  else {
   if (!isset($a[0][$b][0])) return "";
   $a = $a[0][$b];
  }
 }
 return $a;
}

beaudurrant at gmail dot com (19-Dec-2007 07:23)

This is extending what Alf Marius Foss Olsen had posted above.

It takes into account array keys with the same name and uses an increment for them instead of overwriting the keys.

I am using it for SOAP requests (20K - 150K) and it parses very fast compared to PEAR.

<?

class XMLParser  {
   
    // raw xml
    private $rawXML;
    // xml parser
    private $parser = null;
    // array returned by the xml parser
    private $valueArray = array();
    private $keyArray = array();
   
    // arrays for dealing with duplicate keys
    private $duplicateKeys = array();
   
    // return data
    private $output = array();
    private $status;

    public function XMLParser($xml){
        $this->rawXML = $xml;
        $this->parser = xml_parser_create();
        return $this->parse();
    }

    private function parse(){
       
        $parser = $this->parser;
       
        xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0); // Dont mess with my cAsE sEtTings
        xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);     // Dont bother with empty info
        if(!xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $this->rawXML, $this->valueArray, $this->keyArray)){
            $this->status = 'error: '.xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($parser)).' at line '.xml_get_current_line_number($parser);
            return false;
        }
        xml_parser_free($parser);

        $this->findDuplicateKeys();

        // tmp array used for stacking
        $stack = array();        
        $increment = 0;
       
        foreach($this->valueArray as $val) {
            if($val['type'] == "open") {
                //if array key is duplicate then send in increment
                if(array_key_exists($val['tag'], $this->duplicateKeys)){
                    array_push($stack, $this->duplicateKeys[$val['tag']]);
                    $this->duplicateKeys[$val['tag']]++;
                }
                else{
                    // else send in tag
                    array_push($stack, $val['tag']);
                }
            } elseif($val['type'] == "close") {
                array_pop($stack);
                // reset the increment if they tag does not exists in the stack
                if(array_key_exists($val['tag'], $stack)){
                    $this->duplicateKeys[$val['tag']] = 0;
                }
            } elseif($val['type'] == "complete") {
                //if array key is duplicate then send in increment
                if(array_key_exists($val['tag'], $this->duplicateKeys)){
                    array_push($stack, $this->duplicateKeys[$val['tag']]);
                    $this->duplicateKeys[$val['tag']]++;
                }
                else{               
                    // else send in tag
                    array_push($stack,  $val['tag']);
                }
                $this->setArrayValue($this->output, $stack, $val['value']);
                array_pop($stack);
            }
            $increment++;
        }

        $this->status = 'success: xml was parsed';
        return true;

    }
   
    private function findDuplicateKeys(){
       
        for($i=0;$i < count($this->valueArray); $i++) {
            // duplicate keys are when two complete tags are side by side
            if($this->valueArray[$i]['type'] == "complete"){
                if( $i+1 < count($this->valueArray) ){
                    if($this->valueArray[$i+1]['tag'] == $this->valueArray[$i]['tag'] && $this->valueArray[$i+1]['type'] == "complete"){
                        $this->duplicateKeys[$this->valueArray[$i]['tag']] = 0;
                    }
                }
            }
            // also when a close tag is before an open tag and the tags are the same
            if($this->valueArray[$i]['type'] == "close"){
                if( $i+1 < count($this->valueArray) ){
                    if(    $this->valueArray[$i+1]['type'] == "open" && $this->valueArray[$i+1]['tag'] == $this->valueArray[$i]['tag'])
                        $this->duplicateKeys[$this->valueArray[$i]['tag']] = 0;
                }
            }
           
        }
       
    }
   
    private function setArrayValue(&$array, $stack, $value){
        if ($stack) {
            $key = array_shift($stack);
            $this->setArrayValue($array[$key], $stack, $value);
            return $array;
        } else {
            $array = $value;
        }
    }
   
    public function getOutput(){
        return $this->output;
    }
   
    public function getStatus(){
        return $this->status;   
    }
      
}

?>

Usage:

$p = new XMLParser($xml);
$p->getOutput();

php dot net at crazedsanity dot com (24-Oct-2007 03:32)

There's an updated version of cs-phpxml (http://sf.net/projects/cs-phpxml, or https://cs-phpxml.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cs-phpxml/releases for the latest out of subversion) which easily converts an XML string into a PHP array.  Using my previous example:::

<?php
/**
 *
 * *********** EXAMPLE ***********
 *
 * Original file contents:
 * <test xmlns="stuff">
 *         <indexOne>hello</indexOne>
 *         <my_single_index testAttribute="hello" />
 *         <multiple_items>
 *             <item>1</item>
 *             <item>2</item>
 *         </multiple_items>
 * </test>
 *
 * Would return:::
 *
 * array(
 *     TEST => array(
 *         indexOne => hello,
 *         my_single_index => NULL,
 *         multiple_items => array(
 *               items => array(
 *                   0 => 1,
 *                   1 => 2
 *               )
 *         ),
 *     ),
 * );
*/
?>

I've been using this in many production environments, and it's been very stable.  The syntax is pretty simple, too:::

<?php
require_once(dirname(__FILE__) ."/cs-phpxml/xmlParserClass.php");
$xmlParser = new xmlParser(file_get_contents("test.xml"));
$myArray = $xmlParser->get_tree(TRUE);

?>

Alf Marius Foss Olsen (12-Sep-2007 02:46)

<?php
/*
  An easy lightweight (Array ->) XML -> Array algorithm..

  Typical case: You have an array you want to export to an external server,
                so you make XML out of it, exports it, and "on the other side"
                make it into an array again. These two functions will take care
                of that last part, ie XML -> Array
 
  NOTE! The function XMLToArray assumes that the XML _dont_ have nodes on the
        same level with the same name, then it just wont work. This is not a
        problem, as this case deals with Array -> XML -> Array, and an array
        cant have to identical indexes/keys.
*/

function XMLToArray($xml) {
 
$parser = xml_parser_create('ISO-8859-1'); // For Latin-1 charset
 
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0); // Dont mess with my cAsE sEtTings
 
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1); // Dont bother with empty info
 
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $xml, $values);
 
xml_parser_free($parser);
 
 
$return = array(); // The returned array
 
$stack = array(); // tmp array used for stacking
 
foreach($values as $val) {
    if(
$val['type'] == "open") {
     
array_push($stack, $val['tag']);
    } elseif(
$val['type'] == "close") {
     
array_pop($stack);
    } elseif(
$val['type'] == "complete") {
     
array_push($stack, $val['tag']);
     
setArrayValue($return, $stack, $val['value']);
     
array_pop($stack);
    }
//if-elseif
 
}//foreach
 
return $return;
}
//function XMLToArray
 
function setArrayValue(&$array, $stack, $value) {
  if (
$stack) {
   
$key = array_shift($stack);
   
setArrayValue($array[$key], $stack, $value);
    return
$array;
  } else {
   
$array = $value;
  }
//if-else
}//function setArrayValue
 
// USAGE:
$xml = <<<QQQ
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <node1>Some text</node1>
  <node2a>
    <node2b>
      <node2c>Some text</node2c>
    </node2b>
  </node2a>
</root>\n
QQQ;
$array = XMLToArray($xml);
print
"<pre>";
print_r($array);
print
"</pre>";
//  Output:
//
//  Array
//  (
//      [root] => Array
//          (
//              [node1] => Some text
//              [node2a] => Array
//                  (
//                      [node2b] => Array
//                          (
//                              [node2c] => Some text
//                          )
//                  )
//          )
//  )
?>

vinod at citadel-soft dot com (01-Sep-2007 11:43)

My previous code was having some bugs in, that is fixed now

<?php
class CSLXmlReader {
    private
$tagstack;
    private
$xmlvals
    private 
$xmlvarArrPos;
    private
$xmlfile;
    function
__construct($filename// constructor to intialize the stack and val array
   
{
      
       
$this->tagstack = array();   // contain the open tags till now
       
$this->xmlvals = array();
       
$this->xmlvarArrPos = $this->xmlvals// temporary variable to hold the current tag position   
       
$this->xmlfile = $filename;
    }
    function
readDatabase()
    {
       
// read the XML database
       
$data = implode("", file($this->xmlfile));
       
$parser = xml_parser_create();
       
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
       
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
       
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $data, $values, $tags);
       
xml_parser_free($parser);
   
        foreach(
$values as $key => $val//
       
{
            if(
$val['type'] == "open")
            {
               
array_push($this->tagstack, $val['tag']);
               
$this->getArrayPath();
                if(
count($this->xmlvarArrPos) > 0 && (!array_key_exists(0,$this->xmlvarArrPos)))
                {
                   
$temp1 = $this->xmlvarArrPos;
                   
$this->xmlvarArrPos =  array();
                   
$this->xmlvarArrPos[0] = $temp1;
                   
array_push($this->tagstack, 1);
                }   
                else if(
array_key_exists(0,$this->xmlvarArrPos)){
                   
$opncount = count($this->xmlvarArrPos);
                   
array_push($this->tagstack, $opncount);
                }
               
$tagStackPointer += 1;
            }else if(
$val['type'] == "close")
            {
                while(
$val['tag'] != ($lastOpened = array_pop($this->tagstack))){}
            }else if(
$val['type'] ==  "complete")
            {
               
$this->getArrayPath();
                if(
array_key_exists($val['tag'],$this->xmlvarArrPos))
                {   
                    if(
array_key_exists(0,$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']]))
                    {
                       
$elementCount = count($this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']]);
                       
$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']][$elementCount] = $val['value'];
                    }else
                    {       
                       
$temp1 = $this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']];
                       
$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']] =  array();
                       
$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']][0] = $temp1;
                       
$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']][1] = $val['value'];
                    }
                } else
                {
                   
$this->xmlvarArrPos[$val['tag']] = $val['value'];
                }
            }
        }
       
reset($this->xmlvals);
        return
$this->xmlvals;
    }
    function
getArrayPath()
    {

       
reset($this->xmlvals);
       
$this->xmlvarArrPos = &$this->xmlvals;
        foreach(
$this->tagstack as $key)
        {   
           
$this->xmlvarArrPos = &$this->xmlvarArrPos[$key];
                   
        }
    }
       
}

$readerObj  = new CSLXmlReader("test.xml");
$xmlvals = $readerObj->readDatabase();

echo
"########## XML Values In array as the multidimentional array  #############\n";
echo
"<pre>";
print_r($xmlvals);
echo
"</pre>";

?>

php dot net at crazedsanity dot com (13-Jul-2007 06:43)

If you're interested in something that creates arrays in PHP, handles attributes well, and is easily transferrable back into XML, you may want to take a look at the cs-phpxml project at SourceForge.net (http://sf.net/projects/cs-phpxml).  It's not necessarily documented very well, but it will do something like this:

<?php
/**
 *
 * *********** EXAMPLE ***********
 *
 * Original file contents:
 * <test xmlns="stuff">
 *         <indexOne>hello</indexOne>
 *         <my_single_index testAttribute="hello" />
 *         <multiple_items>
 *             <item>1</item>
 *             <item>2</item>
 *         </multiple_items>
 * </test>
 *
 * Would return:
 *
 * array(
 *     TEST => array(
 *         type => 'open',
 *         attributes => array(
 *             xmlns => 'stuff'
 *         )
 *         INDEXONE => 'hello',
 *         MY_SINGLE_INDEX = array(
 *             type => 'complete',
 *            
 *         )
 *     )
 * );
*/
?>

It's presently under development, but I'm using it in several production environments.  The XMLCreator is kinda clunky (builds XML within PHP code).  NOTE: it has a dependency on "cs-arraytopath", also available at sourceforge via http://sf.net/projects/cs-arraytopath .  The setup is a bit irritating, and it's fragile when handling quoting & formatting the data, but I think it's worth the hassle for most projects.

siteres at gmail dot com (07-Feb-2007 09:38)

PHP: XML to Array and backwards:

Here the XML with PHP solution: XML->Array and Array->XML.
Work with it as with usual array.

Sources are here:
http://mysrc.blogspot.com/2007/02/php-xml-to-array-and-backwards.html
(leave me comments:)

Example #1 (1.xml):

<ddd>
 <onemore dd="55">
  <tt>333</tt>
  <tt ss="s1">555</tt>
  <tt>777</tt>
 </onemore>
 <two>sdf rr</two>
</ddd>

The code:

$xml=xml2ary(file_get_contents('1.xml'));
print_r($xml);

Here is the Array result:

Array
(
   [ddd] => Array (
           [_c] => Array (
                   [_p] => Array *RECURSION*
                   [onemore] => Array (
                           [_a] => Array (
                                   [dd] => 55
                               )
                           [_c] => Array (
                                   [_p] => Array  *RECURSION*
                                   [tt] => Array (
                                           [0] => Array (
                                                   [_v] => 333
                                               )
                                           [1] => Array (
                                                   [_a] => Array (
                                                           [ss] => s1
                                                       )
                                                   [_v] => 555
                                               )
                                           [2] => Array (
                                                   [_v] => 777
                                               )
                                       )
                               )
                       )
                   [two] => Array (
                           [_v] => sdf rr
                       )
               )
       )
)

amish (08-Jan-2007 05:21)

Previous parser worked great for me, except a few issues. It did not work well if the element has attributes. I had a huge xml with so many elements, and attributes. Somehow, it mixed up my array, and messed up the keys. Hope following code help fix those issues....

$xml_response = "
<test>
   <item>
     <name att=\"this should show up\">Item1</name>
     <id>item_1</id>
     <description> This is Item 1</description>
     <quantity>10</quantity>
     <navigation website='site1'>test1</navigation>
     <navigation website='site2'>test2</navigation>
   </item>
</test>
"

$parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);   
xml_parser_set_option($parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);   
xml_parse_into_struct($parser,$xml_response,$values,$tags);   
xml_parser_free($parser);

$params = array();
$level = array();

foreach ($values as $xml_elem) {
    $start_level = 1;
           if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open') {
            if (array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem)) {
                 list($level[$xml_elem['level']],$extra) = array_values($xml_elem['attributes']);
             } else {
                 $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
             }
               $name_array    =    array();
         $i=0;
           }

           if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
           if(!in_array($xml_elem['tag'], $name_array)){
                 array_push($name_array, $xml_elem['tag']);
                   $i=0;
              }else{
            $i++;
             }
             $php_stmt = '$params';
             while($start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
                      $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';                    
                    $test    =    $php_stmt;
                    $start_level++;
             }
             $php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']][$i] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
             if(isset($xml_elem['attributes'])){
                         foreach ($xml_elem['attributes'] as $key=>$va){
                     $attribute    =    '';
                     $new_stmt    =    '';
                     $attribute    =    "".$i."_attribute_".$key.""; 
                       $new_stmt .= $test.'[$xml_elem[\'tag\']][$attribute] = $va;';                      
                     eval($new_stmt);
                    }
              }
              eval($php_stmt);
              $start_level--;
           }
           if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'close') {
           array_pop($level);
           }
}

webmaster at after5webdesign dot com (30-Nov-2006 12:48)

That parser also has a problem in which it will not parse more items than the current level it is on. That is, parsing this:  <1><2>A</2><2>B</2><2>C</2></1>
Will only result in this: A B
C is never processed.

It might be better with something like this:
          $file = get_url('http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=current+events', URL_CONTENT);
          $data = $file['content'];
          $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
          xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $data, $vals, $index);
          xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
          //Uncomment the lines below to see the entire structure of your XML document
          //echo "<pre>INDEX: \n";
          //print_r ($index);
          //echo "\n \n \n VALUES:";
          //print_r ($vals);
          //echo "</pre>";
          $params = array();
          $level = array();
          $start_level = 1;
          foreach ($vals as $xml_elem) {
            if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open') {
              if (array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem)) {
                list($level[$xml_elem['level']],$extra) = array_values($xml_elem['attributes']);
              } else {
                $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
              }
            }
            if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
              $php_stmt = '$params';
              while($start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
                $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
                $start_level++;
              }
              $php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']][] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
              eval($php_stmt);
              $start_level--;
            }
          }
          echo "<pre>";
          print_r ($params);
          echo "</pre>";

~Tim_Myth

tsivert (17-Nov-2006 11:06)

To John.

The reason that you only get the last item is that you declare a array of one element that is constantly overwritten by the last element...

I don't know if you want to put the items as two different childarrays of the parent or if you want to put the items in one childarray with two elements.

To put the items in two different childarrays, change the line
$php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
to
$php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']][]';

To put in same childarray change line
$php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
to
$php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']][] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';

Hope this helps you!

tsivert

john (10-Nov-2006 07:15)

I'm currently using this parser and it's working the way I want it to, but it has a little glitch and I was hoping maybe someone can let me know why.

Here's the parser and use for example purposes the following input:

$xml_response = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<test>
    <item>First Item</item>
    <item>Second Item</item>
</test>'

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $xml_response, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

$params = array();
$level = array();
foreach ($vals as $xml_elem) {
  if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open') {
   if (array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem)) {
     list($level[$xml_elem['level']],$extra) = array_values($xml_elem['attributes']);
   } else {
     $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
   }
  }
  if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
   $start_level = 1;
   $php_stmt = '$params';
   while($start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
     $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
     $start_level++;
   }
   $php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
   eval($php_stmt);
  }
}

echo "<pre>";
print_r ($params);
echo "</pre>";

At the output, only the last <item> shows (i.e.Second Item). The first one is lost.

What should I change so it keeps ALL <item> tags.

A3 (04-Nov-2006 01:28)

XML -> Array
<?
    $data = '<root><a><b x="s" a="2">asdf</b><c></c></a></root>';
   
    $p = xml_parser_create();
    xml_parse_into_struct($p, $data, $vals);
    xml_parser_free($p);
   
    $key = $output = array();
   foreach ($vals as $id=>$item) {
      if ($item["type"]=="open" || $item["level"]>count($key)) {// && count($key)<=$item["level"])
          array_push($key, $id);
          $temp = array("tag"=>$item["tag"], "value"=>"", "attributes"=>array());
          eval("\$output[".implode("][", $key)."] = \$temp;");
      }
      if ($item["type"]=="close" || $item["level"]<count($key))// && $item["level"]>=count($key))
          array_pop($key);
      if (isset($item["attributes"]))
          eval("\$output[".implode("][", $key)."]['attributes'] = array_merge(\$output[".implode("][", $key)."]['attributes'], \$item['attributes']);");
      if (isset($item["value"]))
          eval("\$output[".implode("][", $key)."]['value'] .= \$item['value'];");
   }
?>

Elad Elrom (12-Sep-2006 10:14)

This is a quick fix for parsing XML from remote URL, some of the example above will work when trying to parse on your local server without "http://" but not when trying to parse from remote server using "http://www.URL"...

<?
$file="http://www.URL.com/file.XML";

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();

$handle = fopen($file, "rb");
$contents = '';
while (!feof($handle)) {
  $data .= fread($handle, 8192);
}
fclose($handle);

xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $data, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

$params = array();
$level = array();
foreach ($vals as $xml_elem) {
  if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'open') {
   if (array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem)) {
     list($level[$xml_elem['level']],$extra) = array_values($xml_elem['attributes']);
   } else {
     $level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
   }
  }
  if ($xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
   $start_level = 1;
   $php_stmt = '$params';
   while($start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
     $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
     $start_level++;
   }
   $php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
   eval($php_stmt);
  }
}

echo "<pre>";
print_r ($params);
echo "</pre>";
?>

mad dot cat at mcmadcat dot com (06-Sep-2006 12:55)

this my love function:
<?php
function mc_parse_xml($filename)
{
   
$xml = file_get_contents($filename);
   
$p = xml_parser_create();
   
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $xml, $values, $index);
   
xml_parser_free($p);
    for (
$i=0;$i<count($values);$i++) {
        if (isset(
$values[$i]['attributes'])) {
           
$parent = $values[$i]['tag'];
           
$keys = array_keys($values[$i]['attributes']);
            for (
$z=0;$z<count($keys);$z++)
            {
               
$content[$parent][$i][$keys[$z]] = $values[$i]['attributes'][$keys[$z]];
                if (isset(
$content[$parent][$i]['VALUE'])) $content[$parent][$i]['VALUE'] = $values[$i]['value'];
            }
        }
    }
    foreach (
$content as $key => $values) {
       
$content[$key] = array_values($content[$key]);
    }
    if (
is_array($content)) return $content;
    else return
false;
}
?>

webmaster at unitedscripters dot com (17-Jul-2006 01:29)

Ps keep in mind that some Rss feeds include spurious tags as... html entities (see Google news Rss feeds: they include tables as &lt;table blah blah!).

If so, in my rssSnapper below add this:

<?php
$input
=preg_replace("/(<!\\[CDATA\\[)|(\\]\\]>)/", '', $input);
$input=html_entity_decode($input); //<-- added line
?>

You may play around with the code and make it perfect, testing it on various feeds. Not _all_ XML is worth of an XML parser and the sleepless nights it entails.

webmaster at unitedscripters dot com (16-Jul-2006 10:43)

It may be not entirely immaterial to stress that when you are dealing with incoming XML files such as RSS feeds, and you are about to include several of them in some page of yours, resorting to the PHP XML oriented functions is neither _necessarily_ the best idea, nor it is _strictly_ indispensable.

I have in mind, here, also a note that time ago was on this documentation by some info at gramba dot tv:

QUOTE
I was working with the xml2array functions below and had big performance problems. I fired them on a 20MB XML file and had to quit since all approaches of parsing where just too slow (more than 20 Minute parsing etc..). The solution was parsing it manually with preg_match, which increased performance by more than 20 times (processing time about 1 minute).
UNQUOTE

Calling in a specific XML structure function, and arranging a whole class, when all you want from an incoming files may be the contents of a few tags, is not the only option you are left with, when you are at PHP.

Here is a simple function that parses a XML RSS feed using no XML oriented function: keeping this in mind may spare you the need to create extremely complex classes as the ones we see here when _all_ you may want is a few titles and descriptions from an RSS (if that's your goal, you don't need XML parsers):

<?php
function rssSnapper($input='', $limit=0, $feedChannel='Yahoo!News'){
$input=file_get_contents($input);
    if(!
$input){return '';};
$input=preg_replace("/[\\n\\r\\t]+/", '', $input);
$input=preg_replace("/(<!\\[CDATA\\[)|(\\]\\]>)/", '', $input);
preg_match_all("/<item>(.*?)<\\/item>/", $input, $items, PREG_SET_ORDER);
$limit=(int)$limit;
$limit=($limit && is_numeric($limit) && abs($limit)<sizeof($items))? sizeof($items)-abs($limit): 0;
while(
sizeof($items)>$limit){
   
$item=array_shift($items);
   
$item=$item[1];
   
preg_match_all("/<link>(.*?)<\\/link>/", $item, $link, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   
preg_match_all("/<title>(.*?)<\\/title>/", $item, $title, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   
preg_match_all("/<author>(.*?)<\\/author>/", $item, $author, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   
preg_match_all("/<pubDate>(.*?)<\\/pubDate>/", $item, $pubDate, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   
preg_match_all("/<description>(.*?)<\\/description>/", $item, $description, PREG_SET_ORDER);
        if(
sizeof($link)){ $link = strip_tags($link[0][1]); };
        if(
sizeof($title)){ $title = strtoupper( strip_tags($title[0][1]) ); };
        if(
sizeof($author)){ $author = strip_tags($author[0][1]); };
        if(
sizeof($pubDate)){ $pubDate = strip_tags($pubDate[0][1]); };
        if(
sizeof($description)){ $description = strip_tags($description[0][1]); };
    print <<<USAVIT
   
    <!-- ITEM STARTS -->
    <div class="news_bg_trick">
    <a href="
$link" class="item" target="_blank">
    <span class="title">
$title<span class="channel">$feedChannel</span></span>
    <span class="title_footer">
    by <span class="author">
$author</span> -
    <span class="date">
$pubDate</span>
    </span>
    <span class="description">
$description</span>
    </a>
    </div>
    <!-- ITEM ENDS -->
   
USAVIT;
}
//out of loop
/*unitedscripters.com*/
}
?>

The printing phase assigns Css class names: the output is thus fully customizable by a mere style sheet.

The use of strip_tags is a reminder from Chris Shiflett: distrust incoming data, always, anyway.
I hope no typos slipped in in transcription. Arguably not perfect, but I hope a good alternative idea to spending three days on a full fledged XML parser just to grab... three tags from a RSS feed!
bye, ALberto

efredricksen at gmail dot com (24-May-2006 08:55)

Perhaps the one true parser:? I modified xademax's fine code to tidy it up, codewise and style wise, rationalize some minor crazyness, and make names fit nomenclature from the XML spec. (There are no uses of eval, and shame on you people who do.)

<?php
class XmlElement {
  var
$name;
  var
$attributes;
  var
$content;
  var
$children;
};

function
xml_to_object($xml) {
 
$parser = xml_parser_create();
 
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
 
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
 
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $xml, $tags);
 
xml_parser_free($parser);

 
$elements = array();  // the currently filling [child] XmlElement array
 
$stack = array();
  foreach (
$tags as $tag) {
   
$index = count($elements);
    if (
$tag['type'] == "complete" || $tag['type'] == "open") {
     
$elements[$index] = new XmlElement;
     
$elements[$index]->name = $tag['tag'];
     
$elements[$index]->attributes = $tag['attributes'];
     
$elements[$index]->content = $tag['value'];
      if (
$tag['type'] == "open") {  // push
       
$elements[$index]->children = array();
       
$stack[count($stack)] = &$elements;
       
$elements = &$elements[$index]->children;
      }
    }
    if (
$tag['type'] == "close") {  // pop
     
$elements = &$stack[count($stack) - 1];
      unset(
$stack[count($stack) - 1]);
    }
  }
  return
$elements[0];  // the single top-level element
}

// For example:
$xml = '
<parser>
   <name language="en-us">Fred Parser</name>
   <category>
       <name>Nomenclature</name>
       <note>Noteworthy</note>
   </category>
</parser>
'
;
print_r(xml_to_object($xml));
?>

will give:

xmlelement Object
(
    [name] => parser
    [attributes] =>
    [content] =>
    [children] => Array
        (
            [0] => xmlelement Object
                (
                    [name] => name
                    [attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [language] => en-us
                        )

                    [content] => Fred Parser
                    [children] =>
                )

            [1] => xmlelement Object
                (
                    [name] => category
                    [attributes] =>
                    [content] =>
                    [children] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => xmlelement Object
                                (
                                    [name] => name
                                    [attributes] =>
                                    [content] => Nomenclature
                                    [children] =>
                                )

                            [1] => xmlelement Object
                                (
                                    [name] => note
                                    [attributes] =>
                                    [content] => Noteworthy
                                    [children] =>
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

Stuart (23-May-2006 11:26)

This is a great little function for a lot of XML work, but note that this function does not handle XML entities properly.

The basic XML entities &lt; &gt; &amp; &quot; are fine, just anything else will not work:

If the entity is defined in the XML header, the parser will drop it completely from the struct it creates.

If the entity is not defined in the XML then the parser will crash out with an undefined entity error.

You should be able to work around this limitation by using a preg_replace on your XML string before passing it to the parser.

(Further details in Bug #35271; this is just a warning to those thinking of using this function for parsing real XML documents not just trivial XML examples)

donna at coloma dot com (28-Apr-2006 08:15)

I needed a very simple parser for a set of name-value pairs to be stored in a single database field. I started with the mold example, paired it down, picked up the "id" attributes. Perhaps it will be useful for someone else.

<?php
/* simple conversion for name-value fields */

$xmlInput = "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>
<mcw_settings>
  <field id=\"imageAlign\">left</field>
  <field id=\"caption\">What a nice picture.</field>
</mcw_settings>"
;

$desiredResult = array (
   
'imageAlign' => "left",
   
'caption' => "What a nice picture."
);

function
parseFields ($data)
{
   
// read the XML database of fields
   
$parser = xml_parser_create();
   
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
   
xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
   
xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $data, $values, $tags);
   
xml_parser_free($parser);
   
$fields = null;

   
// loop through the structures
   
$fieldIndices = $tags['field'];
    for (
$i=0; $i < count($fieldIndices); $i++ ) {
       
$fieldInfo = $values[$fieldIndices[$i]];
       
$fields[$fieldInfo['attributes']['id']] = $fieldInfo['value'];
    }
    return
$fields;
}

$test = parseFields($xmlInput);
echo
"** Result:\n";
print_r($test);
?>

matt at australiangamer dot com (03-Apr-2006 03:58)

I liked VampBoy's code as it gave me structure pretty much as I wanted it. Just two notes, though:

There is a bug in this code. subdivide() checks for pre-existing values, but not in the case of a "complete" element.

In the following (appallingly bad) XML

<Names>
<Name>Matt</Name>
<Name>Stacy</Name>
<Names>

Only Stacy is added to Names in the array, wiping Matt in the process.

To fix this replace the following code
<?php
elseif ($dat[level] === $level && $dat[type] === "complete"){
  
$newarray[$dat[tag]]=$dat[value];
}
?>
with
<?php
elseif ($dat[level] === $level && $dat[type] === "complete"){
     if (isset(
$newarray[$dat['tag']]) && is_array($newarray[$dat['tag']])){
         
$newarray[$dat['tag']][] = $dat['value'];
     } elseif (isset(
$newarray[$dat['tag']]) && !is_array($newarray[$dat['tag']])){
         
$newarray[$dat['tag']] = array($newarray[$dat['tag']], $dat['value']);
     } else {
         
$newarray[$dat['tag']]=$dat['value'];
     }
}
?>

Oh, also, note that the $dat[level], etc, WILL generate warnings, and should be more correctly written as $dat['level'].

The other thing I thought I should point out is that the array keys when created using xml_parse_into_struct will be an UPPERCASE version of your existing element names. If case is important, especially if you, like me, need mixedCase, do the following:

<?php
$xml_parser
= xml_parser_create();
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser,XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING,0);
?>

(30-Mar-2006 07:57)

$simple = '<?xml version="1.0"?>
<moldb>
    <molecule>
        <name>Alanine</name>
        <symbol>ala</symbol>
        <code>A</code>
        <type>hydrophobic</type>
    </molecule>
    <molecule>
        <name>Lysine</name>
        <symbol>lys</symbol>
        <code>K</code>
        <type>charged</type>
    </molecule>
</moldb>';

$p = xml_parser_create();
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $simple, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($p);
echo "<pre>";
echo "Index array\n";
print_r($index);
echo "\nVals array\n";
print_r($vals);

foreach ($vals as $k => $v) {
    $i = 0;
    if (trim($v['value']) != '') {
        if ($arr[$i][$v['tag']] != '') {
            $i ++;
        }
        $arr[$i][$v['tag']] = $v['value'];
    }
}

xademax at gmail dot com (08-Jan-2006 08:15)

This is just another simple xml parser :)

<?php

class Xml
{
    var
$tag;
    var
$value;
    var
$attributes;
    var
$next;
}

function
xml2array($xml_string)
{
   
$Parser = xml_parser_create();
   
xml_parser_set_option($Parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
   
xml_parser_set_option($Parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
   
xml_parse_into_struct($Parser, $xml_string, $Xml_Values);
   
xml_parser_free($Parser);
   
$XmlClass = array();
   
$LastObj = array();
   
$NowObj = &$XmlClass;

    foreach(
$Xml_Values as $Xml_Key => $Xml_Value)
    {
       
$Index = count($NowObj);
        if(
$Xml_Value["type"] == "complete")
        {
           
$NowObj[$Index] = new Xml;
           
$NowObj[$Index]->tag = $Xml_Value["tag"];
           
$NowObj[$Index]->value = $Xml_Value["value"];
           
$NowObj[$Index]->attributes = $Xml_Value["attributes"];
        }
        elseif(
$Xml_Value["type"] == "open")
        {
           
$NowObj[$Index] = new Xml;
           
$NowObj[$Index]->tag = $Xml_Value["tag"];
           
$NowObj[$Index]->value = $Xml_Value["value"];
           
$NowObj[$Index]->attributes = $Xml_Value["attributes"];
           
$NowObj[$Index]->next = array();
           
$LastObj[count($LastObj)] = &$NowObj;
           
$NowObj = &$NowObj[$Index]->next;
        }
        elseif(
$Xml_Value["type"] == "close")
        {
           
$NowObj = &$LastObj[count($LastObj) - 1];
            unset(
$LastObj[count($LastObj) - 1]);
        }
       
    }

    return
$XmlClass;
}

$String = "
<parser>
    <parseur_name>MyParser</parseur_name>
    <category>
        <name>Name 1</name>
        <note>A note 1</note>
    </category>
</parser>
"
;
$Xml = xml2array($String);

print_r($Xml);
?>

This exemple will show :
Array
(
    [0] => Xml Object
        (
            [tag] => parser
            [value] =>
            [attributes] =>
            [next] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Xml Object
                        (
                            [tag] => parseur_name
                            [value] => MyParser
                            [attributes] =>
                            [next] =>
                        )

                    [1] => Xml Object
                        (
                            [tag] => category
                            [value] =>
                            [attributes] =>
                            [next] => Array
                                (
                                    [0] => Xml Object
                                        (
                                            [tag] => name
                                            [value] => Name 1
                                            [attributes] =>
                                            [next] =>
                                        )

                                    [1] => Xml Object
                                        (
                                            [tag] => note
                                            [value] => A note 1
                                            [attributes] =>
                                            [next] =>
                                        )

                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

VampBoy (14-Dec-2005 10:45)

WHUPS! that was a broken test version.here is the real one:

class xml2array{
/* This class parses XML tags into a recursive, associative array with the tags as the associative array elements names.

if it encounters multiples of the same tag within a stream, it enumerates them as a sub array under the tag thus:

Array (
    [Lvl1tag] => Array (
        [0] => Array(
            [Lvl2tag] = "foo")
        [1]=> Array(
            [Lvl2tag] = "bar")
    )
)

It tries to detect when there is only one copy of a tag under another, and concatinate properly.
*/

    function readxmlfile($xmlfile){ // reads XML file in and returns it
      $xmlstream =fopen($xmlfile,r);
      $xmlraw=fread($xmlstream,1000000);
      fclose($xmlstream);
      return $xmlraw;
    }

    function parseXMLintoarray ($xmldata){ // starts the process and returns the final array
      $xmlparser = xml_parser_create();
      xml_parse_into_struct($xmlparser, $xmldata, $arraydat);
      xml_parser_free($xmlparser);
      $semicomplete = $this->subdivide($arraydat);
      $complete = $this->correctentries($semicomplete);
      return $complete;
    }
   
    function subdivide ($dataarray, $level = 1){
      foreach ($dataarray as $key => $dat){
        if ($dat[level] === $level && $dat[type] === "open"){
          $toplvltag = $dat[tag];
        } elseif ($dat[level] === $level && $dat[type] === "close" && $dat[tag]=== $toplvltag){
          $newarray[$toplvltag][] = $this->subdivide($temparray,($level +1));
        
        
          unset($temparray,$nextlvl);
        } elseif ($dat[level] === $level && $dat[type] === "complete"){
          $newarray[$dat[tag]]=$dat[value];
        } elseif ($dat[type] === "complete"||$dat[type] === "close"||$dat[type] === "open"){
          $temparray[]=$dat;
        }
      }
      return $newarray;
    }
function correctentries($dataarray){

if (is_array($dataarray)){
  $keys =  array_keys($dataarray);
  if (count($keys)== 1 && is_int($keys[0])){
    $tmp = $dataarray[0];
    unset($dataarray[0]);
       $dataarray = $tmp;
  }
  $keys2 = array_keys($dataarray);
  foreach($keys2 as $key){
    $tmp2 = $dataarray[$key];
    unset($dataarray[$key]);
    $dataarray[$key] = $this->correctentries($tmp2);
    unset($tmp2);
  }
  }
return $dataarray;
}
}

p dot gasiorowski at axent dot pl (13-Dec-2005 02:31)

Something similar to kieran's _xml2array, however much more faster.
------
class ObjectFromXML
{
    var $parser;
    var $iter = 0;
    var $path = array();
    var $xml = array();

    function ObjectFromXML($XML)
    {
        $this->parser = xml_parser_create();
       
        xml_set_object($this->parser, &$this);
       
        xml_parser_set_option($this->parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
        xml_parser_set_option($this->parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);

        xml_set_element_handler($this->parser, "hanleTagStart", "hanleTagEnd");
        xml_set_character_data_handler($this->parser, "hanleTagCData");

        xml_parse($this->parser, $XML);
        xml_parser_free($this->parser);
       
        $this->xml = $this->xml['_children'][0];
    }

    function getEvalPath()
    {
        return '$this->xml[' . "'" . implode("']['", $this->path) . "'" . ']';
    }

    function hanleTagStart($parser, $tag, $attributes)
    {
        array_push($this->path, '_children');
        array_push($this->path, ($this->iter++));

        $e = $this->getEvalPath();
        eval ($e . "['_name'] = \$tag;");
        if ($attributes !== array())
        {
            eval ($e . "['_attributes'] = \$attributes;");
        }
    }

    function hanleTagCData($parser, $cdata)
    {
        $e = $this->getEvalPath();
        eval ($e . "['_value'] = \$cdata;");
    }

    function hanleTagEnd($parser, $tag)
    {
        array_pop($this->path);
        array_pop($this->path);
    }
}

mbirth at webwriters dot de (08-Nov-2005 11:48)

Searching for a nice and working way to get a RSS feed into an array-structure, I found the solution posted by kieran but disliked those several eval()s. So I wrote my own using references/pointers.

<?php

class RSSParser {
 
  var
$struct = array();  // holds final structure
 
var $curptr// current branch on $struct
 
var $parents = array();  // parent branches of current branch
 
 
function RSSParser($url) {
   
$this->curptr =& $this->struct// set ref to base
   
$xmlparser = xml_parser_create();
   
xml_set_object($xmlparser, $this);
   
xml_set_element_handler($xmlparser, 'tag_open', 'tag_close');
   
xml_set_character_data_handler($xmlparser, 'cdata');
   
$fp = fopen($url, 'r');

    while (
$data = fread($fp, 4096))
     
xml_parse($xmlparser, $data, feof($fp))
      || die(
sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
        
xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xmlparser)),
        
xml_get_current_line_number($xmlparser)));

   
fclose($fp);
   
xml_parser_free($xmlparser);
  }
 
  function
tag_open($parser, $tag, $attr) {
   
$i = count($this->curptr['children']);
   
$j = count($this->parents);
   
$this->curptr['children'][$i]=array();  // add new child element
   
$this->parents[$j] =& $this->curptr// store current position as parent
   
$this->curptr =& $this->curptr['children'][$i];  // submerge to newly created child element
   
$this->curptr['name'] = $tag;
    if (
count($attr)>0) $this->curptr['attr'] = $attr;
  }
 
  function
tag_close($parser, $tag) {
   
$i = count($this->parents);
    if (
$i>0) $this->curptr =& $this->parents[$i-1];  // return to parent element
   
unset($this->parents[$i-1]);  // clear from list of parents
 
}
 
  function
cdata($parser, $data) {
   
$data = trim($data);
    if (!empty(
$data)) {
     
$this->curptr['value'] .= $data;
    }
  }
 
}

$myparser = new RSSParser('getitems.xml');
$anotherparser = new RSSParser('http://johndoe:secret@myfeeds.com/getfeed.xml');

print_r($myparser->struct);
print_r($anotherparser->struct);

?>

kieran at kieran dot ca (20-Oct-2005 05:20)

<?
/*
|
| _xml2array - another abstraction layer on xml_parse_into_struct
|              that returns a nice nested array.
|
|      @param: $xml is a string containing a full xml document
|
|     returns: a nested php array that looks like this:
|                  
|              array
|              (
|                  [_name] => the name of the tag
|                  [_attributes] => an array of 'attribute'=>'value' combos
|                  [_value] => the text contents of the node
|                  [_children] => an array of these arrays, one for each node.
|              )
|
|       notes: thanks to 'jeffg at activestate dot com' who inspired
|              me to essentially re-write his example code from php.net
|
|           me: Kieran Huggins < kieran[at]kieran[dot]ca >
|
*/
function _xml2array($xml){
    global $keys;
    global $level;
    if(!is_array($xml)){ // init on first run
        $raw_xml = $xml;
        $p = xml_parser_create();
        xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
        xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
        xml_parse_into_struct($p, $raw_xml, $xml, $idx);
        xml_parser_free($p);
    }
    for($i=0;$i<count($xml,1);$i++){
        // set the current level
        $level = $xml[$i]['level'];

        if($level<1)break;

        // mark this level's tag in the array
        $keys[$level] = '['.$i.']';
       
        // if we've come down a level, sort output and destroy the upper level
        if(count($keys)>$level) unset($keys[count($keys)]);

        // ignore close tags, they're useless
        if($xml[$i]['type']=="open" || $xml[$i]['type']=="complete"){

            // build the evalstring
            $e = '$output'.implode('[\'_children\']',$keys);

            // set the tag name
            eval($e.'[\'_name\'] = $xml[$i][\'tag\'];');

            // set the attributes
            if($xml[$i]['attributes']){
                eval($e.'[\'_attributes\'] = $xml[$i][\'attributes\'];');
            }
           
            // set the value
            if($xml[$i]['value']){
                eval($e.'[\'_value\'] = trim($xml[$i][\'value\']);');
            }

        }

    }

    return $output;
}
?>

info at gramba dot tv (23-Aug-2005 04:54)

I was working with the xml2array functions below and had big performance problems. I fired them on a 20MB XML file and had to quit since all approaches of parsing where just too slow (more than 20 Minute parsing etc..). The solution was parsing it manually with preg_match, which increased performance by more than 20 times (processing time about 1 minute).

Rough example function with high performance:

<?php

function customXMLtoARRAY($xmlstring) {

   
// get all nodes
   
preg_match_all("#<node>(.*?)</node>#s",$xmlstring,$nodes);
   
$xmlstring = NULL;

   
$allnodes = array();

   
// put subnodes into node
   
while($nodes = array_pop($nodes[1])) {

       
$nodecontent = array();

       
// Content1
       
preg_match("#<content1>(.*?)</content1>#",$eventreihe,$val);
       
$nodecontent['content1'] = $val[1];
       
       
$allnodes[] = $nodecontent;
       
    }
    return
$allnodes;
}

?>

Chris Hester (28-Jul-2005 01:06)

The array generated from XML stores not only the elements but also any spaces and linebreaks between the tags. This results in a much longer array. (I had 24 array fields instead of 10!) To cure this use the following code when creating the parser:

<?php
$xml_parser
= xml_parser_create();
xml_parser_set_option($xml_parser,XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1);
?>

grusin at gmail dot com (20-Jul-2005 07:54)

Here is a simple patch to peter's xml2array function.

Replace:

<?
case 'open':
$tag_or_id = (array_key_exists ('attributes', xml_elem)) ? $xml_elem['attributes']['ID'] : $xml_elem['tag'];
$ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id] = array ();
$ptrs[$level+1] = & $ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id];
break;
?>

with:

<?
case 'open':
$tag_or_id = (array_key_exists ('attributes', $xml_elem)) ? $xml_elem['attributes']['ID'] : $xml_elem['tag'];
$ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id][] = array ();
$ptrs[$level+1] = & $ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id][count($ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id])-1];
break;
?>

and now code should handle multiple element case :)

Dustin (13-Jul-2005 04:39)

If you happen to have problems with weird charaters, I added this code to the first line of dUDA's function:

$XML = utf8_decode($XML);

PhF at madmac dot fr (23-Jun-2005 09:11)

The code previously posted by noob at noobsrule dot com doesn't work when the same tag name is used at different levels.
(but perhaps "$php_used_prefix" was intended for that ?)
For example:
<RatedShipment>
  <TransportationCharges>
    ...
  </TransportationCharges>
  <RatedPackage>
    <TransportationCharges>
      ...
    </TransportationCharges>
  </RatedPackage>
</RatedShipment>
<?php
    $p
= xml_parser_create();
   
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
   
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
   
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $UPSxml, $values, $idx);
   
xml_parser_free($p);
   
   
// tracking used keys
   
$usedKeys = array();
   
$deepLevel = -1;

   
// start a php array string (evaluated later)
   
$forEvalPrefix = '$xml_array';
   
   
// loop throught the value array
   
foreach ($values as $key => $val) {
       
$tagName = $val['tag']; // pass the key tag into a more friendly looking variable
       
$level = $val['level']; // idem
       
if($val['type'] == 'open') {
           
$deepLevel++; // increase deep level
           
$forEvalPrefix .= '[\''. $tagName .'\']';
           
           
// begin used keys checks to allow multidimensionatity under the same tag
           
(isset($usedKeys[$level][$tagName])) ? $usedKeys[$level][$tagName]++ : $usedKeys[$level][$tagName] = 0;
           
$forEvalPrefix .= '['. $usedKeys[$level][$tagName] .']';
        }
        if(
$val['type'] == 'complete') {
            (
$level > $deepLevel) ? $deepLevel++ : ''; // increase $deepLevel only if current level is bigger
           
$tagValue = addslashes($val['value'] ); // format the value for evaluation as a string
           
$forEvalSuffix = '[\''. $tagName .'\'] = \''. $tagValue .'\';'; // create a string to append to the current prefix
           
$forEval = $forEvalPrefix . $forEvalSuffix; // (without "$php_used_prefix"...)
           
eval($forEval); // write the string to the array structure
       
}
        if(
$val['type'] == 'close') {
            unset(
$usedKeys[$deepLevel]); // Suppress tagname's keys useless
           
$deepLevel--;
           
$forEvalPrefix = substr($forEvalPrefix, 0, strrpos($forEvalPrefix, '[')); // cut off the used keys node
           
$forEvalPrefix = substr($forEvalPrefix, 0, strrpos($forEvalPrefix, '[')); // cut off the end level of the array string prefix
       
}
    }
echo
'<pre>';
print_r ($xml_array);
echo
'</pre>';
?>

MADmac ;-)

peter at elemental dot org (15-Jun-2005 04:46)

Quick addendum to my post below... The code does *not* handle cases where multiple elements are used without attribute IDs, as is the case with the moldb example.  (It is probably worth noting that some of the other code below doesn't do this either, and is still more complex.)

It is not difficult to add that functionality, but I have yet to find an elegant way to integrate that feature, and since I don't need that functionality at the moment, I'm going leave that as an exercise to the reader.  ;-)

-p.

peter at elemental dot org (15-Jun-2005 12:09)

Some of the code posted previously seemed absurdly complex, so I thought I'd see if I could simplify things a bit. Here's what I came up with.  (I'm still a PHP newbie, so perhaps I simplified too much.  ;-)  Untested for speed, but it *should* be pretty quick since it uses references instead of lookups or (gack) evals.

Enjoy!

/*
 *  Convert a string containing XML into a nested array
 *
 *  Takes a raw XML string as input
 *  Returns a nested array
 */

function xml2array ($xml_data)
{
    // parse the XML datastring
    $xml_parser = xml_parser_create ();
    xml_parse_into_struct ($xml_parser, $xml_data, $vals, $index);
    xml_parser_free ($xml_parser);

    // convert the parsed data into a PHP datatype
    $params = array();
    $ptrs[0] = & $params;  
    foreach ($vals as $xml_elem) {
        $level = $xml_elem['level'] - 1;
        switch ($xml_elem['type']) {
        case 'open':
            $tag_or_id = (array_key_exists ('attributes', $xml_elem)) ? $xml_elem['attributes']['ID'] : $xml_elem['tag'];
            $ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id] = array ();
            $ptrs[$level+1] = & $ptrs[$level][$tag_or_id];
            break;
        case 'complete':
            $ptrs[$level][$xml_elem['tag']] = (isset ($xml_elem['value'])) ? $xml_elem['value'] : '';
            break;
        }
    }
   
    return ($params);

}

gleber at mapnet dot pl (26-Mar-2005 11:03)

XMLtoArray created by dudus at onet dot pl was not good enough for me, that's why i decided to create my own version, and here's the result:

<?php

function &last(&$array) {
if (!
count($array)) return null;
end($array);
return
$array[key($array)];
}

function
myParseXML(&$vals, &$dom, &$lev) {
    do {
       
$curr = current($vals);
       
$lev = $curr['level'];
        switch (
$curr['type']) {
            case
'open':
                if (isset(
$dom[$curr['tag']])) {
                   
$tmp = $dom[$curr['tag']];
                    if (!
$tmp['__multi'])
                       
$dom[$curr['tag']] = array('__multi' => true, $tmp);
                   
array_push($dom[$curr['tag']], array());
                   
$new =& last($dom[$curr['tag']]);
                } else {
                   
$dom[$curr['tag']] = array();
                   
$new =& $dom[$curr['tag']];
                }
               
next($vals);
               
myParseXML(&$vals, $new, $lev);
                break;
            case
'cdata':
                break;
            case
'complete':
                if (!isset(
$dom[$curr['tag']]))
                   
$dom[$curr['tag']] = $curr['value'];
                else {
                    if (
is_array($dom[$curr['tag']]))
                       
array_push($dom[$curr['tag']] , $curr['value']);
                    else
                       
array_push($dom[$curr['tag']] = array($dom[$curr['tag']]) , $curr['value']);
                }
                break;
            case
'close':
                return;
        }
    }
    while (
next($vals)!==FALSE);
}

function
MyXMLtoArray($XML) {
      
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
      
xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $XML, $vals);
      
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
      
reset($vals);
      
$dom = array(); $lev = 0;
      
myParseXML($vals, $dom, $lev);
       return
$dom;
}

?>

MyXMLtoArray() is that function you should call, other are for "internal" use.

P.S. It's 4-5 time faster then dudus at onet dot pl 's code

noob at noobsrule dot com (24-Jan-2005 06:59)

This is my first time contributing but I found all the examples either didn't work or were beyond my comprehension.  I also wanted to maintain the XML multi-dimensionality so I could do loops based on keys I was expecting rather than numbers or some other whatnot.  This script is probably way inefficient, but should give you a multidimensional array with a depth that will match the XML source.  Great for situations when you aren't sure what you'll be getting back.  Its also only based on the values array of xml_parse_into_str() using the 3 tag types (open, complete, and close) -- hopefully it will make more sense to other noobs.

Basically it just constructs a string ($php_prefix) that is tweaked if it hits an "open" or "close" tag and evaluated if it hits a "complete" tag.

Thanks.

<?php

# initiate curl session...
$ch = curl_init( "http://yourtargethost" ) or die ( "could not initialize curl" );

# set curl options...
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0 );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request_str );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 0 );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, https://foobar.com" );
curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1 );

# execute curl commands...
$curl_result = curl_exec( $ch ) or die ( "could not execute the post" );
curl_close( $ch ); // close curl session

# pass the XML result into 2 arrays ( index and values )...
$p = xml_parser_create();
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
xml_parse_into_struct($p, $curl_result, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($p);

# create an empty used key tracker...
$used_keys = array();

# start a php array string (evaluated later)...
$php_prefix = "$"."my_array";

# loop through the values array...
foreach ($vals as $key => $val) {
    if(
$val['type'] == "open" ) {
       
$my_tag = $val['tag']; // pass the key tag into a more friendly looking variable...
       
$php_prefix .= "['".$my_tag."']"; # add a new level to the array string...

        # begin used key checks to allow multidimensionality under the same tag, adds a number to the prefix if necessary...
       
if( ! array_key_exists( $my_tag, $used_keys ) ) {
           
$used_keys[$my_tag] = 0;
           
$php_prefix .= "[".$used_keys[$my_tag]."]";
        }else {
           
$used_keys[$my_tag]++; // increment the key tracker to avoid overwriting existing key...
           
$php_prefix .= "[".$used_keys[$my_tag]."]";
        }
    } elseif(
$val['type'] == "complete" ) {
       
$my_value = addslashes( $val['value'] ); # format the value for evaluation as a string...
       
$php_suffix = "['".$val['tag']."'] = \"".$my_value."\";"; # create a string with the tag and value to append to the current prefix (just used here)...
       
$php_str = $php_prefix.$php_used_prefix.$php_suffix;
        eval(
$php_str ); # write the string to the array structure...
   
}
    if(
$val['type'] == "close" ) {
       
$php_prefix = substr( $php_prefix, 0, strrpos( $php_prefix, "[" ) ); # cut off the used keys node...
       
$php_prefix = substr( $php_prefix, 0, strrpos( $php_prefix, "[" ) ); # cut off the end level of the array string prefix...
   
}
}

echo
"<pre>";
//print_r ($index);
//echo "<br><br><br>";
//print_r ($vals);
//echo "<br><br><br>";
print_r ($my_array);
echo
"</pre>";

?>

dudus at onet dot pl (18-Jan-2005 02:33)

This function return array from XML. Included attributes and tags in same level.
I wrote this function based on mmustafa code.

enjoy!
dUDA

-------------------------------

<?
function XMLtoArray($XML)
{
    $xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
    xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $XML, $vals);
    xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
    // wyznaczamy tablice z powtarzajacymi sie tagami na tym samym poziomie
    $_tmp='';
    foreach ($vals as $xml_elem)
    {
        $x_tag=$xml_elem['tag'];
        $x_level=$xml_elem['level'];
        $x_type=$xml_elem['type'];
        if ($x_level!=1 && $x_type == 'close')
        {
            if (isset($multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]))
                $multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]=1;
            else
                $multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]=0;
        }
        if ($x_level!=1 && $x_type == 'complete')
        {
            if ($_tmp==$x_tag)
                $multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]=1;
            $_tmp=$x_tag;
        }
    }
    // jedziemy po tablicy
    foreach ($vals as $xml_elem)
    {
        $x_tag=$xml_elem['tag'];
        $x_level=$xml_elem['level'];
        $x_type=$xml_elem['type'];
        if ($x_type == 'open')
            $level[$x_level] = $x_tag;
        $start_level = 1;
        $php_stmt = '$xml_array';
        if ($x_type=='close' && $x_level!=1)
            $multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]++;
        while($start_level < $x_level)
        {
              $php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
              if (isset($multi_key[$level[$start_level]][$start_level]) && $multi_key[$level[$start_level]][$start_level])
                  $php_stmt .= '['.($multi_key[$level[$start_level]][$start_level]-1).']';
              $start_level++;
        }
        $add='';
        if (isset($multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level]) && $multi_key[$x_tag][$x_level] && ($x_type=='open' || $x_type=='complete'))
        {
            if (!isset($multi_key2[$x_tag][$x_level]))
                $multi_key2[$x_tag][$x_level]=0;
            else
                $multi_key2[$x_tag][$x_level]++;
             $add='['.$multi_key2[$x_tag][$x_level].']';
        }
        if (isset($xml_elem['value']) && trim($xml_elem['value'])!='' && !array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem))
        {
            if ($x_type == 'open')
                $php_stmt_main=$php_stmt.'[$x_type]'.$add.'[\'content\'] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
            else
                $php_stmt_main=$php_stmt.'[$x_tag]'.$add.' = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
            eval($php_stmt_main);
        }
        if (array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem))
        {
            if (isset($xml_elem['value']))
            {
                $php_stmt_main=$php_stmt.'[$x_tag]'.$add.'[\'content\'] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
                eval($php_stmt_main);
            }
            foreach ($xml_elem['attributes'] as $key=>$value)
            {
                $php_stmt_att=$php_stmt.'[$x_tag]'.$add.'[$key] = $value;';
                eval($php_stmt_att);
            }
        }
    }
     return $xml_array;
}    // END XMLtoArray
?>

memandeemail at gmail dot com (09-Dec-2004 03:09)

a BREAK on right place, will be faster and bugprevent

    /**
    * @return bool
    * @param xml_array $values
    * @param xml_array[reference] $tags
    * @desc Reconstruct xml_parse_into_struct to open and close concept
    */
    function reconstruct_tag($values, &$tags) {
        unset($return);
        foreach ($tags as $tkey => $tvalue) {
            foreach ($tvalue as $vvalue) {
                if ($values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'open' or $values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'complete') {
                    $return[$tkey][] = $vvalue;
                }
                if ($values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'open') {
                    foreach ($tvalue as $tv_value) {
                        if ($values[$tv_value]['type'] == 'close'
                        and $values[$tv_value]['level'] == $values[$vvalue]['level']
                        and $tv_value > $vvalue) {
                            $return[$tkey][] = $tv_value;
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        $tags = $return;
        return (bool) $tags;
    }

memandeemail at gmail dot com (03-Dec-2004 12:32)

If you have de XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<teste>
    <teste>
        <teste>
        </teste>
    </teste>
</teste>

this function will return this tags:
Array
(
    [teste] => Array
        (
            [0] => 0
            [1] => 1
            [2] => 2
            [3] => 3
            [4] => 4
        )

)

With this function (right below) will convert the struc to OPEN and CLOSE concept.

The New Struct:
Array
(
    [teste] => Array
        (
            [0] => 0
            [1] => 4
            [2] => 1
            [3] => 3
            [4] => 2
        )

)
The Function:
/**
 * @return bool
 * @param xml_array $values
 * @param xml_array[reference] $tags
 * @desc Reconstruct xml_parse_into_struct
*/
function reconstruct_tag($values, &$tags) {
    unset($return);
    foreach ($tags as $tkey => $tvalue) {
        foreach ($tvalue as $vvalue) {
            if ($values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'open' or $values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'complete') {
                $return[$tkey][] = $vvalue;
            }
            if ($values[$vvalue]['type'] == 'open') {
                foreach ($tvalue as $tv_value) {
                    if ($values[$tv_value]['type'] == 'close'
                    and $values[$tv_value]['level'] == $values[$vvalue]['level']) {
                        $return[$tkey][] = $tv_value;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
    $tags = $return;
    return (bool) $tags;
}

Ahh, DO NOT forget this comment:

jukkaho at mail dot student dot oulu dot fi
29-Jun-2004 12:17
Everyone seems to forget the return value of this function (including people making examples!), but it is there for a reason:
0 if failed (invalid XML), 1 if succeeded.

Return value really is an integer, be careful with those === operators.

rob at digital hyphen crocus dot com (03-Sep-2004 05:21)

I wrote this function in a bad mood, to get some data you can loop through. sprint_r or var_dump its output to see what it does. It's not pretty, but at least you can loop through the data without a LOT of hassle.

This can also be done with handlers, but I couldn't be bothered with global variables.

<?php

$data
= xml_parse_into_struct($somexml);

function
xml_getmeaningfuldata($data) {
foreach(
$data as $element) {
        if (
$element['type'] == "open") {
                if (!
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]) {
                       
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']] = 1;
                }
               
$elements[$parents.$element['tag'].":". $elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]]['attributes'] = $element['attributes'];
               
$elements[$parents.$element['tag'].":". $elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]]['value'] = trim($element['value']);
               
$parents .= $element['tag'].":".$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]."^";
        }
        if (
$element['type'] == "cdata") {
                if (
trim($element['value'])) {
                       
$elements[$parents.$element['tag'].":". $elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]]['values'] = $element['value'];
                }
        }
        if (
$element['type'] == "complete") {
                if (!
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]) {
                       
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']] = 1;
                }
               
$elements[$parents.$element['tag'].":". $elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]]['attributes'] = $element['attributes'];
               
$elements[$parents.$element['tag'].":". $elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]]['value'] = trim($element['value']);
               
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]++;
        }
        if (
$element['type'] == "close") {
               
$parents = substr($parents, 0, strrpos(substr($parents, 0, -1), "^")+1);
               
$elementnos[$parents.$element['tag']]++;
//              if (sizeof($parents) == 1) unset($parents);
       
}
}

return
$elements;

}

happyseb at free dot fr (24-Aug-2004 04:51)

I would just add something about the solution proposed by "gordon at kanazawa dot ac dot jp".

Something went wrong about the fact that "cdata" are treated the same way as "complete" in the xml_get_children first and in the xml_get_child then.

When ?
with this method, something like this :
<tagA>
  <tagB>valueB</tagB>
  valueA
  <tagC>valueC</tagC>
</tagA>
is considered as the same thing as
<tagA>
  <tagB>valueB</tagB>
  <tagA>valueA</tagA>
  <tagC>valueC</tagC>
</tagA>

The algorithm is nomore bijective.

Even if it might not be perfect :-) i propose a little modification of the xml_get_child function :

function xml_get_child(&$v, $children=NULL) {
      $c = array(); // the "child"
      if (isset($v['tag']) && $v['type'] != 'cdata') $c['tag'] = $v['tag'];
      if (isset($v['value'])) $c['value'] = $v['value'];
      if (isset($v['attributes'])) $c['attributes'] = $v['attributes'];
      if (is_array($children)) $c['children'] = $children;
      return $c;
}

moreover, the following function will take the tree (made from the xml_get_tree function) as a parameter and build the xml content back

    /*
    // setTree
    // set xml Tree from a well-formed array
    // manage indentation
    // Parameters are :
    // $1 (needed) : Tree to transform
    // $2 (optional) : Indentation type (default is one tabulation)
    // $3 (optional) : First indent (default is empty string)
    */

    function setTree($Atree, $indentType = '    ', $Sindent = '')
    {
      if (! isset ($Atree['tag']) && isset ($Atree['value'])) return ($Sindent.trim($Atree['value'])."\r\n") ;
      else {
        $Stemp = $Sindent.'<'.$Atree['tag'].' ' ;
        if (isset ($Atree['attributes']) && is_array ($Atree['attributes'])) {
          foreach ($Atree['attributes'] as $Aattribute => $Svalue) $Stemp .= $Aattribute.'="'.$Svalue.'" ' ;
        }
        if (! isset ($Atree['children']) && ! isset ($Atree['value'])) $Stemp .= '/>'."\r\n" ;
        else {
          $Stemp .= '>'."\r\n" ;
          if (isset ($Atree['value'])) $Stemp .= $Sindent.$indentType.trim($Atree['value'])."\r\n" ;
          if (isset ($Atree['children']) && is_array ($Atree['children']))
            foreach ($Atree['children'] as $Achild) $Stemp .= $this->setTree($Achild, $indentType, $Sindent.$indentType) ;
          $Stemp .= $Sindent.'</'.$Atree['tag'].'>'."\r\n" ;
        }
        return ($Stemp) ;
      }
    }

sdh33 at cornell dot edu (14-Jun-2004 06:12)

(The previous post I wrote was incorrect.  I fix that herein)
I used the algorithm from stephane for writing back to a file, but ran into the following problem.  My original XML looks like

<ENTRY id="1"> ... </ENTRY><ENTRY id="2"> ... </ENTRY>

This got saved back as

<1> ... </1><2> ... </2>,

which expat doesn't like.  So I propose the following modification:

function writeXmlToFile($data, $f, $niv = 0) {
  foreach($data as $name => $elem) {
    if (preg_match("/\A[0-9]/",$name)) {
      $open = "ENTRY id=\"$name\""; $name = "ENTRY";
    } else {
      $open = $name;
    }
    if(is_array($elem)) {
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."<".$open.">"."\n");
      writeXmlToFile($elem, $f, $niv + 1);
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."</".$name.">"."\n");
    } else {
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."<".$open.">".$elem."</".$name.">"."\n");
    }
  }
}

stephane dot dekeyzer at noemail dot com (08-Apr-2004 07:54)

for writing the array of mmustafa back to a xml file, use this code:

function writeXmlFile($fileName, $struct){
  $f = fopen($fileName, "w");
  writeXmlToFile($struct, $f);
  fclose($f);
}

function writeXmlToFile($data, $f, $niv = 0){
  foreach($data as $name => $elem){
    if(is_array($elem)){
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."<".$name.">"."\n");
      writeXmlToFile($elem, $f, $niv + 1);
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."</".$name.">"."\n");
    }
    else{
      fwrite($f, str_repeat("  ", $niv)."<".$name.">".$elem."</".$name.">"."\n");
    }
  }
}

gordon at kanazawa dot ac dot jp (26-Jan-2004 04:36)

Many thanks to "dave at ovumdesign dot com" for his excellent routines based on the fine work of "gdemartini at bol dot com". I offer a further refinement below, which removes the duplication of the code to create a child node. The resulting tree is the same as in Dave's earlier version and so can be compacted using his "xml_condense_tree"

function xml_get_child(&$v, $children=NULL) {
   $c = array(); // the "child"
   if (isset($v['tag'])) $c['tag'] = $v['tag'];
   if (isset($v['value'])) $c['value'] = $v['value'];
   if (isset($v['attributes'])) $c['attributes'] = $v['attributes'];
   if (is_array($children)) $c['children'] = $children;
   return $c;
}
function xml_get_children(&$values, &$i) {
   $children = array();
   while ($i < count($values)) {
      $v = &$values[$i++];
      switch ($v['type']) {
         case 'cdata':
         case 'complete':
            $children[] = xml_get_child($v);
            break;
         case 'open':
            $children[] = xml_get_child($v, xml_get_children($values, $i));
            break;
         case 'close':
            break 2; // leave "while" loop
      }
   }
   return $children;
}
function xml_get_tree($file) {
   $data = join('', file($file));

   $p = xml_parser_create();
   xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
   xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,  1);
   xml_parse_into_struct($p, $data, $values);
   xml_parser_free($p);

   return xml_get_children($values, $i=0);
}

mmustafa at vsnl dot com (06-Jan-2004 08:19)

A small and simple php code to convert the raw array returned by xml_parse_into_struct into a proper data structure ..

<?php
$file
= "data.xml";
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();

if (!(
$fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
    die(
"could not open XML input");
}

$data = fread($fp, filesize($file));
fclose($fp);
xml_parse_into_struct($xml_parser, $data, $vals, $index);
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

$params = array();
$level = array();
foreach (
$vals as $xml_elem) {
  if (
$xml_elem['type'] == 'open') {
    if (
array_key_exists('attributes',$xml_elem)) {
      list(
$level[$xml_elem['level']],$extra) = array_values($xml_elem['attributes']);
    } else {
     
$level[$xml_elem['level']] = $xml_elem['tag'];
    }
  }
  if (
$xml_elem['type'] == 'complete') {
   
$start_level = 1;
   
$php_stmt = '$params';
    while(
$start_level < $xml_elem['level']) {
     
$php_stmt .= '[$level['.$start_level.']]';
     
$start_level++;
    }
   
$php_stmt .= '[$xml_elem[\'tag\']] = $xml_elem[\'value\'];';
    eval(
$php_stmt);
  }
}

echo
"<pre>";
print_r ($params);
echo
"</pre>";
?>

Converts an XML document like ..

<country id="ZZ">
<name>My Land</name>
<location>15E</location>
<area>40000</area>
<state1>
<name>Hi State</name>
<area>1000</area>
<population>2000</population>
<city1>
<location>13E</location>
<population>500</population>
<area>500</area>
</city1>
<city2>
<location>13E</location>
<population>500</population>
<area>5000</area>
</city2>
</state1>
<state2>
<name>Low State</name>
<area>3000</area>
<population>20000</population>
<city1>
<location>15E</location>
<population>5000</population>
<area>1500</area>
</city1>
</state2>
</country>

To a php datastructure like ..

Array
(
    [ZZ] => Array
        (
            [NAME] => My Land
            [LOCATION] => 15E
            [AREA] => 40000
            [STATE1] => Array
                (
                    [NAME] => Hi State
                    [AREA] => 1000
                    [POPULATION] => 2000
                    [CITY1] => Array
                        (
                            [LOCATION] => 13E
                            [POPULATION] => 500
                            [AREA] => 500
                        )

                    [CITY2] => Array
                        (
                            [LOCATION] => 13E
                            [POPULATION] => 500
                            [AREA] => 5000
                        )

                )

            [STATE2] => Array
                (
                    [NAME] => Low State
                    [AREA] => 3000
                    [POPULATION] => 20000
                    [CITY1] => Array
                        (
                            [LOCATION] => 15E
                            [POPULATION] => 5000
                            [AREA] => 1500
                        )

                )

        )

)

(26-Sep-2003 11:43)

actually, using the notation

$object->property is the right one

and you can use it always, preventing errors with arrays

Eric (22-Sep-2003 04:50)

Yet another XML -> nested array converter.

This is based on http://www.devdump.com/phpxml.php, but adds features while reducing code complexity.

It can take several forms of input:
 - string (buffer)
 - file handle (pipe)
 - file name -or-
 - URL

It can optionally collapse arrays of same-named tags to a single element if there is only one tag with a given name.

It can optionally preserve tag order for XML applications where position is significant, such as CallXML.

XMLParser.obj at:
http://eric.pollmann.net/work/public_domain/

Corrections and suggestions enthusiastically welcomed.  :)

Adam Tylmad (12-Sep-2003 01:01)

I've just debugged and optimized my xmlparser.

gdemartini's xml-example generates this structure:

stdClass Object
(
    [FORM] => stdClass Object
        (
            [SECTION] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [NAME] => Data
                    [EDITFIELD] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [LABEL] => Text:
                            [NAME] => poll_text
                            [LENGTH] => 255
                            [SIZE] => 56
                            [REQUIRED] => T
                        )

                    [MEMOFIELD] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [LABEL] => Options
                            [NAME] => options
                            [COLS] => 56
                            [ROWS] => 5
                            [REQUIRED] => T
                        )
                )
        )
)

the moldb example generates this structure:

stdClass Object
(
    [MOLDB] => stdClass Object
        (
            [MOLECULE] => Array
                (
                    [0] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [NAME] => Alanine
                            [SYMBOL] => ala
                            [CODE] => A
                            [TYPE] => hydrophobic
                        )

                    [1] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [NAME] => Lysine
                            [SYMBOL] => lys
                            [CODE] => K
                            [TYPE] => charged
                        )
                )
        )
)

here is the code. enjoy!

<?php

class XMLParser {
    var
$path;
    var
$result;

    function
cleanString($string) {
        return
trim(str_replace("'", "&#39;", $string));
    }
   
    function
XMLParser($encoding, $data) {
       
$this->path = "\$this->result";
       
$this->index = 0;
       
       
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create($encoding);
       
xml_set_object($xml_parser, &$this);
       
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, 'startElement', 'endElement');
       
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, 'characterData');

       
xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, true);
       
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);
    }
   
    function
startElement($parser, $tag, $attributeList) {
       
$this->path .= "->".$tag;
        eval(
"\$data = ".$this->path.";");
        if (
is_array($data)) {
           
$index = sizeof($data);
           
$this->path .= "[".$index."]";
        } else if (
is_object($data)) {
            eval(
$this->path." = array(".$this->path.");");
           
$this->path .= "[1]";
        }

        foreach(
$attributeList as $name => $value)
            eval(
$this->path."->".$name. " = '".XMLParser::cleanString($value)."';");
    }
   
    function
endElement($parser, $tag) {
       
$this->path = substr($this->path, 0, strrpos($this->path, "->"));
    }
   
    function
characterData($parser, $data) {
        if (
$data = XMLParser::cleanString($data))
            eval(
$this->path." = '$data';");
    }
}

?>

plusplus7 at hotmail dot com (18-Jun-2003 02:40)

Quick and dirty function to get original file from $vals array in manual example. Build on this for custom parsing of individual elements (something like this should be built-in IMO).

<pre>
function parseVals($vals){
    foreach($vals as $valobj){
        if($valobj['type']=='open' || $valobj['type']=='complete'){
            $retstr .= '<'.$valobj['tag'];
            if(is_array($valobj['attributes'])){
                foreach($valobj['attributes'] as $key=>$val){
                    $retstr .= " $key=\"$val\"";
                }
            }
        }
        if($valobj['type']=='open'){
            $retstr .= '>'.$valobj['value'];
        }elseif($valobj['type']=='complete' && $valobj['value']){
            $retstr .= '>'.$valobj['value'].'</'.$valobj['tag'].'>';
        }elseif($valobj['type']=='complete'){
            $retstr .= ' />';
        }elseif($valobj['type']=='cdata'){
            $retstr .= $valobj['value'];
        }elseif($valobj['type']=='close'){
            $retstr .= '</'.$valobj['tag'].'>';
        }

    }
    return $retstr;
}

</pre>

masuod_a at hotmail dot com (24-Nov-2002 12:32)

wanna load object from xml file? this function take a tree returned by xml_get_tree() [dave@ovumdesign.com's version] and return an object.
it can't work with attributes, i hate attributes (except id), but may be useful for you.

- how to use :
------------------------- xml file -------------
<config>
   <images>
      <image id="1">
        <name>my pet</name>
        <file>pet001.jpg</file>
      </image>
      <image id="2">
        <name>harry's pet</name>
        <file>pet003.jpg</file>
      </image>
   </images>
   <library>lib_functions.php</library>
</config>
----------------------------------------------
$config=xml_to_object($xml_tree);
$config->library;    #return "lib_functions.php"
$config->images->image__1->name; #return "my pet"
----------------------------------------------
function xml_to_object($xml_tree,$root=false){
             $object_name=$xml_tree['tag'];
             foreach ($xml_tree['children'] as $children){
                          $child_id=$children['attributes']['id'];
                          $child_name=$children['tag'];
                          $child_name.=($child_id) ? "__".$child_id:'';

                          if (is_array($children['children'])) {   
                                      $child_object=xml_to_object($children);
                                      $temp_object->$child_name=$child_object;
                          } else {
                                    $temp_object->$child_name=$children['value'];
                         }
             }

             if (!$root)
                          $xml_object=$temp_object;
             else       $xml_object->$object_name=$temp_object;

             return $xml_object;
}

also you can use this function for loading array from xml , but i suggest you to use kris@h3x.com's functions[ http://www.devdump.com/phpxml.php ].

function xml_to_array($xml_tree,$root=false){
   $array_name=$xml_tree['tag'];
   foreach ($xml_tree['children'] as $children){
       $child_id=$children['attributes']['id'];
       $child_name=$children['tag'];
       $child_name.=($child_id) ? "__".$child_id:'';
       if (is_array($children['children'])) {
            $child_array=xml_to_array($children);
            $temp_array[$child_name]=$child_array;
       } else {           
            $temp_array[$child_name]=$children['value'];
       }
   }
   
   if (!$root)
      $xml_array=$temp_array;
   else
      $xml_array[$array_name]=$temp_array;
   
    return $xml_array;
}

bisqwit at iki dot fi dot not dot for dot ads dot invalid (20-Nov-2002 04:33)

I made my own xml2tree()-function.
The difference to the previously suggested ones on this manual page is that this creates a tree where the tags are keys.

Example input:

<tree>
 <leaf name="gruu"> pl </leaf>
 <animal type="cat" />
</tree>

Example output:

Array
( 'tree' => Array
     ( 0 => Array
          ( 'children' => Array
               ( 'leaf' => Array
                    ( 0 => Array
                         ( 'attrs' => Array('name' => 'gruu'),
                           'values' => Array(0 => ' pl ')
                    )    ),
                 'animal' => Array
                    ( 0 => Array
                         ( 'attrs' => Array('type' => 'cat')
)    )   )    )    )   )

function xml2tree2($string)
{
  $parser = xml_parser_create();
  xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
  xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
  xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $string, $vals, $index);
  xml_parser_free($parser);
 
  $stack = array( array() );
  $stacktop = 0;
  $parent = array();
  foreach($vals as $val)
  {
    $type = $val['type'];
    if($type=='open' || $type=='complete')
    {
      // open tag
      $stack[$stacktop++] = $tagi;
      $tagi = array('tag' => $val['tag']);

      if(isset($val['attributes']))  $tagi['attrs'] = $val['attributes'];     
      if(isset($val['value']))
        $tagi['values'][] = $val['value'];
    }
    if($type=='complete' || $type=='close')
    {
      // finish tag
      $tags[] = $oldtagi = $tagi;
      $tagi = $stack[--$stacktop];
      $oldtag = $oldtagi['tag']; 
      unset($oldtagi['tag']);
      $tagi['children'][$oldtag][] = $oldtagi;
      $parent = $tagi;
    }
    if($type=='cdata')
    {
      $tagi['values'][] = $val['value'];
    }
  }
  return $parent['children'];
}       

Ps: Note that the xml parsing for some reason chokes if the values contain <> (even inside ""). You need to escape them as &lt; and &gt;.
Same for & (for obvious reasons). Escape it as &amp;.
For example "&nbsp;" should be written as "&amp;nbsp;".

joeldegan at yahoo dot com (20-Nov-2002 12:40)

Using one of the nice function above, I was able to get these two great structures below on nmap info for a machine and then the PID lists for each open port.. Very handy for my current project.

$test = `nmap -sU -sS localhost -oX -`;
$ret = xml2array($test);
$z=0;
while (list($key,$val)=each($ret["host"][0][3]["children"])){
    if ($val["tag"] == "PORT"){
        $new[$z]["PROTOCOL"] = $val["attributes"]["PROTOCOL"];
        $new[$z]["PORT"] = $val["attributes"]["PORTID"];
       
        //echo $val["attributes"]["PROTOCOL"]."\n";   
        //echo $val["attributes"]["PORTID"]."\n";
        $z++;
    }//fi
}//wend

print_r($new);

function port_pids($portnum){
    $ret = `lsof -i :$portnum -F pc`;
    $ret = explode("\n", $ret);
    $z=0;
    for($a=0;$a<count($ret);$a++){
        $port = $ret[$a];
        $a++;
        $com = $ret[$a];
        $new[$z]["PID"]=substr($port, 1);
        $new[$z]["COMMAND"]=substr($com, 1);
        $z++;
    }//wend
    return $new;
}//end function

print_r(port_pids("3306"));

no at chance dot com (08-Nov-2002 06:38)

Thanks to gdemartini's tree algorithm , I was able to create a variation that display's the information in a way that allows you to then easily parse the information with less code and process time. Here's the variation and I've also posted a quick function at the bottom that allows you to visually display complex arrays in human readable format. Hope this helps someone as much as gdemartini's functions helped me.

I decided to post it on my server as opposed to the forums as it was too large and needed some good html formatting.  It can found at http://www.devdump.com/phpxml.php .

ambi at gmx dot de (05-Oct-2002 11:59)

Sorry.. unreachable and unneeded code in my posting above :-)
Here is the fixed version:
function xml_condense_tree($tree) {
    if ($tree["children"]) {
            unset($nodecounters);
            foreach ($tree['children'] as $index => $node) {
                if (!isset($nodecounters[$node['tag']]))
                $nodecounters[$node['tag']]=1;
                else $nodecounters[$node['tag']]++;
            }
        foreach ($tree['children'] as $index => $node) {
            if (isset($node['children'])) {
                $tree['children'][$index] = xml_condense_tree($node);
            } elseif (isset($node['value']) and !$node['attributes'] and $nodecounters[$node['tag']]==1) {
                $tree['values'][$node['tag']] = $node['value'];
                unset($tree['children'][$index]);
            }
        }
    }
    if (!$tree['children']) unset($tree['children']);
   
    return $tree;
}

(09-Aug-2002 09:20)

This is based on a comment above by mh@mainlab.de.  This version makes more sense to me and I included a few comments that might make it more usefull for specific purposes.

// Look through $vals and $index,
// generated by parse_xml_data(),
// for $location.  $location resembles a unix path.
// E.g. "my/xml/path/to/my/data".
// Note: This is NOT a full-feature xml utility.
// Your path must be unique in the xml data
// and the tags must not contain slashes.
//
// returns: cdata from last element of $location
//          or NULL.
function get_xml_values($vals, $index, $location) {
  $location = explode('/', $location);
  $location_level = count($location);
  for ($n=0; $n<$location_level; ++$n) {
    $val_indexes=$index[$location[$n]];
    $good=0;
    for ($i=0; $i<count($val_indexes); ++$i) {
      $v = $vals[$val_indexes[$i]];
      // level is 1 based, n is 0 based:
      if ($v['level']-1 == $n) {
        if ($v['type'] == 'open') {
          // We found an open tag at the correct level.
          $good=1;
          break; // Remove break to avoid 'open' hiding
                 // 'complete' at last $n. (Speed Vs. Robustness:
                 // For now, I'm going with speed).
        }
        if ($v['type'] == 'complete') {
          // We found it, after finding all the prior elements:
          // You may want to change this to
          // return $v
          // so you can call $v['value'] and $v['attributes']
          return $v['value'];
        }
      }
    }
    if (!$good) {
      return NULL;
    }
  }
}

farinspace-at-hotmail-dot-com (21-Jul-2002 02:41)

Wow, took a while to consume all of this. I am a noobie at XML, in fact i just really started working with it today. I went ahead and added to the above code by gdemartini@bol.com.br. I also added the update by nyk@cowham.net.

Added 'value' => $vals[$i]['value'] to the open case, as some nodes have both cdata as well as a children node. In previous versions of the functions the cdata of a node(a) that also had children would get stored in the children's array of the parent node(a). Now only children values are in the children array and the cdata is in the value key of the parent node(a).

Added 'value' => $vals[$i]['value'] to tree array as the vals array produced by PHP includes a value to the top most node if no children exist (for completeness).

Also, using xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,1) will strip all white space from both around the XML tags as well as inside the cdata. I added a piece of code by waldo@wh-e.com to take care of this. All SPACE characters are now only stripped from around the XML tags and cdata spacing is retained.

CODE:
***************************************

function GetChildren($vals, &$i) {

    $children = array();

    while (++$i < sizeof($vals)) {

        // compair type
        switch ($vals[$i]['type']) {

            case 'cdata':
                $children[] = $vals[$i]['value'];
                break;
            case 'complete':
                $children[] = array(
                    'tag' => $vals[$i]['tag'],
                    'attributes' => $vals[$i]['attributes'],
                    'value' => $vals[$i]['value']
                );
                break;
            case 'open':
                $children[] = array(
                    'tag' => $vals[$i]['tag'],
                    'attributes' => $vals[$i]['attributes'],
                    'value' => $vals[$i]['value'],
                    'children' => GetChildren($vals, $i)
                );       
                break;
            case 'close':
                return $children;
        }
    }
}

function GetXMLTree($file) {

    $data = implode('', file($file));

    // by: waldo@wh-e.com - trim space around tags not within
    $data = eregi_replace(">"."[[:space:]]+"."<","><",$data);

    // XML functions
    $p = xml_parser_create();

    // by: anony@mous.com - meets XML 1.0 specification
    xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
    xml_parse_into_struct($p, $data, &$vals, &$index);
    xml_parser_free($p);

    $i = 0;
    $tree = array();
    $tree[] = array(
        'tag' => $vals[$i]['tag'],
        'attributes' => $vals[$i]['attributes'],
        'value' => $vals[$i]['value'],
        'children' => GetChildren($vals, $i)
    );

    return $tree;
}

***************************************

dave at ovumdesign dot com (03-Apr-2002 11:32)

Here is another variation on gdemartini@bol.com.br's nice tree algorithm. I have included nyk@cowham.net's "cdata" suggestion. I made a few changes to suppress unitialized variable warnings with error_reporting(E_ALL), and made a few stylistic changes.

There are two functional modifications as well. The first is the added option to expat to turn off "case folding", since XML is technically a case-sensitive language. The second is the returned tree - instead of returning a single-element list (an array with index 0 pointing to the top node) like the original algorithm, it returns the top node itself. This saves you an unnecessary level of indirection.

function xml_get_children($vals, &$i) {
    $children = array();
    if (isset($vals[$i]['value'])) $children[] = $vals[$i]['value'];

    while (++$i < count($vals)) {
        switch ($vals[$i]['type']) {
        case 'cdata':
            $children[] = $vals[$i]['value'];
            break;

        case 'complete':
            $children[] = array(
                'tag'        => $vals[$i]['tag'],
                'attributes' => isset($vals[$i]['attributes'])?
                                $vals[$i]['attributes'] : null,
                'value'      => $vals[$i]['value'],
            );
            break;

        case 'open':
            $children[] = array(
                'tag'        => $vals[$i]['tag'],
                'attributes' => isset($vals[$i]['attributes'])?
                                $vals[$i]['attributes'] : null,
                'children'   => xml_get_children($vals, $i),
            );
            break;

        case 'close':
            return $children;
        }
    }
}

function xml_get_tree($file) {
    $data = join('', file($file));

    $parser = xml_parser_create();
    xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
    xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE,   1);
    xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $data, $vals, $index);
    xml_parser_free($parser);

    return array(
        'tag'        => $vals[0]['tag'],
        'attributes' => isset($vals[0]['attributes'])?
                        $vals[0]['attributes'] : null,
        'children'   => xml_get_children($vals, $i = 0),
    );
}

This function takes a tree returned by xml_get_tree() and simplifies it similarly to voncken@mailandnews.com and oknapp@soly.de's suggestions. It finds any nodes that expat considered "complete" (childless) and contain no attributes, and it moves the tag name (as the key) and value into an element in the parent node's "values" array.

For example:
$tree = xml_get_tree('moldb.xml');  
$tree = xml_condense_tree($tree);
echo $tree['children'][1]['values']['name'];

Outputs:
Lysine

function xml_condense_tree($tree) {
    foreach ($tree['children'] as $index => $node) {
        if (isset($node['children'])) {
            $tree['children'][$index] = xml_condense_tree($node);

        } elseif (isset($node['value']) and !$node['attributes']) {
            $tree['values'][$node['tag']] = $node['value'];
            unset($tree['children'][$index]);
        }
    }
    
    if (!$tree['children']) unset($tree['children']);
    return $tree;
}

Enjoy,
Dave

voncken at mailandnews dot com (06-Jan-2002 01:24)

I needed something a bit different:
this is the result of my xml2array function (from the moldb example)

Array
(
    [molecule] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [name] => Alanine
                    [symbol] => ala
                    [code] => A
                    [type] => hydrophobic
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [name] => Lysine
                    [symbol] => lys
                    [code] => K
                    [type] => charged
                )

        )

)

function xml2array($data)
  {
    //mvo voncken@mailandnews.com
    //original ripped from  on the php-manual:gdemartini@bol.com.br   
    //to be used for data retrieval(result-structure is Data oriented)   
    $p = xml_parser_create();
    xml_parser_set_option($p, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
    xml_parse_into_struct($p, $data, &$vals, &$index);
    xml_parser_free($p);

    $tree = array();
    $i = 0;
    //array_push($tree, array('tag' => $vals[$i]['tag'], 'attributes'=> $vals[$i]['attributes'],                            'children' => ));
    $tree = GetChildren($vals, $i);
    return $tree;
  }

 function GetChildren($vals, &$i)
  {                 
    $children = array();
    if ($vals[$i]['value']) array_push($children, $vals[$i]['value']);
       
    $prevtag = "";
    while (++$i < count($vals)) // so pra nao botar while true ;-)
    {     
      switch ($vals[$i]['type'])
      {         
         case 'cdata':
           array_push($children, $vals[$i]['value']);
           break;
         case 'complete':                     
           $children[ strtolower($vals[$i]['tag']) ] = $vals[$i]['value'];           
           break;

         case 'open':                                
          
           //restartindex on unique tag-name
           $j++;
           if ($prevtag <> $vals[$i]['tag']) {
                   $j = 0;   
                   $prevtag = $vals[$i]['tag'];
            }                             
           $children[ strtolower($vals[$i]['tag']) ][$j] = GetChildren($vals,$i);
           break;

         case 'close':          
           return $children;
      }
    }   
  }