Last updated: Fri, 27 Jun 2008

SimpleXMLElement->children()

(PHP 5 >= 5.0.1)

SimpleXMLElement->children() — Finds children of given node

Opis

SimpleXMLElement

SimpleXMLElement children ([ string $ns [, bool $is_prefix ]] )

This method finds the children of the element of which it is a member. The result follows normal iteration rules.

Informacja: W SimpleXML wprowadzono zasadę dodawania pól iteracyjnych dla większości metod. Nie mogą być one przeglądane przez var_dump() ani przez nic innego co bada obiekty.

Parametry

ns
is_prefix: Default to FALSE

Zwracane wartości

Rejestr zmian

Wersja	Opis
5.2.0	The optional parameter `is_prefix` was added.

Przykłady

Example #1 Traversing a children() pseudo-array


<?php
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(
'<person>
 <child role="son">
  <child role="daughter"/>
 </child>
 <child role="daughter">
  <child role="son">
   <child role="son"/>
  </child>
 </child>
</person>');

foreach ($xml->children() as $second_gen) {
    echo ' The person begot a ' . $second_gen['role'];

    foreach ($second_gen->children() as $third_gen) {
        echo ' who begot a ' . $third_gen['role'] . ';';

        foreach ($third_gen->children() as $fourth_gen) {
            echo ' and that ' . $third_gen['role'] .
                ' begot a ' . $fourth_gen['role'];
        }
    }
}
?>

Powyższy przykład wyświetli:

The person begot a son who begot a daughter; The person
begot a daughter who begot a son; and that son begot a son

SimpleXMLElement->__construct()

SimpleXMLElement->attributes()

Last updated: Fri, 27 Jun 2008

add a note User Contributed Notes
SimpleXMLElement->children()

transglobe at gmx dot de
19-Mar-2008 11:37


I made a slightly differnt approch towards the RecurseXML function. Beeing hungry I had problems with the code, as it did just overwrite two <maincourse>s. So here is what I did:



<?php



$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(

'<meal>

   <type>Lunch</type>

   <time>12:30</time>

   <menu>

     <entree>salad</entree>

     <maincourse>

        <part>ships</part>

        <part>steak</part>

     </maincourse>

     <maincourse>

        <part>fisch</part>

        <part>rice</part>

     </maincourse>

     <maincourse>

        <part>wine</part>

        <part>cheese</part>

     </maincourse>

   </menu>

</meal>');



$vals = array();

RecurseXML($xml,$vals);



foreach($vals as $key=>$value)

  print("{$key} = {$value}<BR>\n");



function RecurseXML($xml,&$vals,$parent="") {



  $childs=0;

  $child_count=-1; # Not realy needed.

  $arr=array();

        foreach ($xml->children() as $key=>$value) {

                if (in_array($key,$arr)) {

                        $child_count++;

                } else {

                        $child_count=0;

                }

                $arr[]=$key;

                $k=($parent == "") ? "$key.$child_count" : "$parent.$key.$child_count";

                $childs=RecurseXML($value,$vals,$k);

                if ($childs==0) {

                        $vals[$k]= (string)$value;

                }

        }



  return $childs;

}



?>

Output is like this:

type.0 = Lunch

time.0 = 12:30

menu.0.entree.0 = salad

menu.0.maincourse.0.part.0 = ships

menu.0.maincourse.0.part.1 = steak

menu.0.maincourse.0 =

menu.0.maincourse.1.part.0 = fisch

menu.0.maincourse.1.part.1 = rice

menu.0.maincourse.1 =

menu.0.maincourse.2.part.0 = wine

menu.0.maincourse.2.part.1 = cheese

menu.0.maincourse.2 =

menu.0 = 



(Not beautiful, but it solved my case...)

crescentfreshpot at yahoo dot com
10-Dec-2007 05:16


Just a warning that the iterable returned from children() contains the '@attributes' key, which is "invisible" during a foreach but can be seen if using a different construct, such as list()=each() or casting to an array before iterating w/ foreach.

lars dot a dot johansson at se dot atlascopco dot com
20-Nov-2007 07:41


Hi,

Anyone who can tell me how to parse an xml tag that contains both text and childs. e.g.

...<sql>select * from table;<conv>default.php</conv><sql>...



The only way I could extract the text (select...) was with the following snippet



foreach($xml->children() as $k => $v ) {

$elem = count($v); 

$xmla = (array) $xml[0];

if (is_string($xmla["$k"]) and $elem) {

    // $xmla["$k"] is 'select * from table'

}

...}

which is not very pretty. 

Convert the child xml object to an array and check if the child is a string and not an end node. It's un ugly hack, but it does the job.

aero
23-May-2007 05:35


Here's a slightly modified function that transforms xml data into an associative array with the indices's into the array have the following syntax, parent.child etc.



So for



<meal>

   <type>Lunch</type>

   <time>12:30</time>

   <menu>

     <entree>salad</entree>

     <maincourse>steak</maincourse>

   </menu>

</meal>



The array would look like this...



array(4) {

  ["type"]=>

  string(5) "Lunch"

  ["time"]=>

  string(5) "12:30"

  ["menu.entree"]=>

  string(5) "salad"

  ["menu.maincourse"]=>

  string(5) "steak"

}



Here's an example



<?php



$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(

'<meal>

   <type>Lunch</type>

   <time>12:30</time>

   <menu>

     <entree>salad</entree>

     <maincourse>steak</maincourse>

   </menu>

</meal>');



$vals = array();

RecurseXML($xml,$vals);



foreach($vals as $key=>$value)

  print("{$key} = {$value}<BR>\n");



function RecurseXML($xml,&$vals,$parent="")

{

   $child_count = 0;

   foreach($xml as $key=>$value)

   {

      $child_count++;     

      $k = ($parent == "") ? (string)$key : $parent . "." . (string)$key; 

      if(RecurseXML($value,$vals,$k) == 0)  // no childern, aka "leaf node"

         $vals[$k] = (string)$value;   

   }

   return $child_count;

}



The output:



type = Lunch

time = 12:30

menu.entree = salad

menu.maincourse = steak



?>

aero
23-May-2007 05:07


Here's a simple, recursive, function to transform XML data into pseudo E4X syntax ie. root.child.value = foobar



<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);



$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(

'<Patriarch>

   <name>Bill</name>

   <wife>

     <name>Vi</name>

   </wife>

   <son>

     <name>Bill</name>

   </son>

   <daughter>

     <name>Jeri</name>

     <husband>

       <name>Mark</name>

     </husband>

     <son>

       <name>Greg</name>

     </son>

     <son>

       <name>Tim</name>

     </son>     

     <son>

       <name>Mark</name>

     </son>     

     <son>

       <name>Josh</name>

         <wife>

           <name>Kristine</name>

         </wife> 

         <son>

           <name>Blake</name>

         </son>

         <daughter>

           <name>Liah</name>

         </daughter>

     </son>

   </daughter>

</Patriarch>');



RecurseXML($xml);



function RecurseXML($xml,$parent="")

{

   $child_count = 0;

   foreach($xml as $key=>$value)

   {

      $child_count++;     

      if(RecurseXML($value,$parent.".".$key) == 0)  // no childern, aka "leaf node"

      {

         print($parent . "." . (string)$key . " = " . (string)$value . "<BR>\n");        

      }     

   }

   return $child_count;

}



?>



The output....



.name = Bill

.wife.name = Vi

.son.name = Bill

.daughter.name = Jeri

.daughter.husband.name = Mark

.daughter.son.name = Greg

.daughter.son.name = Tim

.daughter.son.name = Mark

.daughter.son.name = Josh

.daughter.son.wife.name = Kristine

.daughter.son.son.name = Blake

.daughter.son.daughter.name = Liah

taylorbarstow at that google mail thingy
21-Apr-2006 04:38


Sometimes you actually want an array, not a pseudo array.   This is especially true when you aren't dealing with attributes (i.e., you just want the array of child nodes).



Do like this:



<?php

$children = $sxml->xpath('child::node()');

?>



The reason you might want this is to be able to use array functions like array_shift, array_pop, etc.  This is especially true when you are writing recursive functions.  Simplexml works really well in iterative programming, but if you try to implement recursion it gets ugly.

Sebastian
27-Oct-2005 12:45


Just a quick addition:



If you need to access a child node which contains a dash, you need to encapsulate it with {""}.



For example:

<?php

foreach ($domain->domain-listing as $product) {

}

?>



The example above doesn't work because of the dash. But instead you need to use:

<?php

foreach ($domain->{"domain-listing"} as $product) {

}

?>



At least for me the second example works perfectly fine.

no-one
01-Jun-2005 03:05


For anyone who hasn't read Sterling Hughe's article (http://www.zend.com/php5/articles/php5-simplexml.php):



<?php

$xml_document =<<<EOT

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<root xmlns:foo="http://google.com">

  <foo:bar>baz</foo:bar>

</root>

EOT;



$xml_document = simplexml_load_xml($xml_document);



$foo_ns_bar = $xml_document->children('http://google.ca');



echo $foo_ns_bar->bar[0]; // prints 'baz'

?>

Andrew Rose (rose dot andrew at gmail dot com)
16-Mar-2005 01:48


The example below shows the basic use of depth-first recursion to span the xml tree.



This is coded for the command line, and it prints out the original sentance above and then the copy cat sentence it creates itself for comparison, which as you will see; this example is slightly off from, I'll leave it upto you to resolve this issue.



All in all I personaly think xml and recursion go hand in hand, so if you don't understand recursion but know xml and want to use php to manipulate xml you will need to learn about recursion at some point.



<?

$xml = simplexml_load_string(

'<person>

 <child role="son">

  <child role="daughter"/>

 </child>

 <child role="daughter">

  <child role="son">

   <child role="son"/>

  </child>

 </child>

</person>');



function recurse($child)

 {

   foreach($child->children() as $children) {

     echo ' who begot a '.$children['role'];

     recurse($children); 

   }

    return;

 }



foreach($xml->children() as $children) {

 echo 'The person begot a '.$children['role'];

  recurse($children, 0);

 echo '; ';

}



echo "\n";

echo 'The person begot a son who begot a daughter; The person begot a daughter who begot a son; and that son begot a son'."\n";



?>

zyxwvu at users dot sourceforge dot net
15-Feb-2004 07:32


File:



<category>

  <item>text</item>

  <bold>text</bold>

  <item>text</item>

  <item>text</item>

  <mark>text</mark>

  <bold>text</bold>

</category>



If you want to get also names of the tags, you can use this loop layout:



foreach($category -> children() as $name => $node){

  echo $name.'<br/>';

}

add a note

SimpleXMLElement->__construct()

SimpleXMLElement->attributes()

Last updated: Fri, 27 Jun 2008