PHP Parsing XML to Get All String Values At Multiple Depths

Question

PHP Parsing XML to Get All String Values At Multiple Depths

55 views Asked by Maciek At 14 August 2023 at 19:13

I've got an XML like the following example:

<article>
  <body>
    <title>I <underline><bold>LOVE</bold></underline> Coding</title>
  </body>
</article>

I'd like to get the full text of the node title.

$xml=simplexml_load_file("file.xml");
$title=$xml->xpath('//title')??[];
echo (string)$title;

I cannot seem to go deeper and grab the underlined/bold XML parts.

I would like the results to be a string I LOVE Coding.

How can I achieve this? I am only getting I Coding.

I've also tried xpath('string(//title)') but got an empty result.

Original Q&A

There are 3 answers

Dirk J. Faber On 14 August 2023 at 19:41

You need to strip the tags that are inside <title> like so:

$xmlFile = simplexml_load_file('file.xml');
$title = strip_tags($xmlFile->body->title->asXML());

echo $title;

Or if your XML isn't a file but a string:

$xmlString = '<article>
  <body>
    <title>I <underline><bold>LOVE</bold></underline> Coding</title>
  </body>
</article>';

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlString);
$title = strip_tags($xml->body->title->asXML());

echo $title;

Olivier On 14 August 2023 at 19:42

You can call dom_import_simplexml() to retrieve the DOM element, then use the textContent property:

$xml = <<<XML
<article>
  <body>
    <title>I <underline><bold>LOVE</bold></underline> Coding</title>
  </body>
</article>
XML;

$doc = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$title = $doc->xpath('//title')[0];
$dom = dom_import_simplexml($title);
echo $dom->textContent;

Result:

I LOVE Coding

**Sammitch** · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-14T19:47:44+00:00

SimpleXML is, quite frankly, not a good interface to work with. It's simple as in there's not much to it, but also simple in that there's a fair bit missing, and frequently ends up needing more work anyway.

DomDocument is more full-featured, and by far better to work with, IMO.

$xml = <<<_E_
<article>
  <body>
    <title>I <underline><bold>LOVE</bold></underline> Coding</title>
  </body>
</article>
_E_;

$d = new DomDocument();
$d->loadXml($xml);
$x = new DomXPath($d);
$r = $x->query('//title');

var_dump($r[0]->textContent);

Output:

string(13) "I LOVE Coding"

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PHP Parsing XML to Get All String Values At Multiple Depths

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