As a developer, it is common to search the web for an existing (open source) code snippet to re-use for an application, but it is rare for the developer to just copy code online and use it straight in their application without modifying it first.
I am one of many developers who like to save time if possible by using open source code if coding from scratch takes longer than a couple of minutes, but there are times when one cannot be found. I ran into such situation when I wanted a function that converts an XML string into an array. Unfortunately, most are overly complicated for what I wanted, so I decided to create my own and share with the world. The following function converts XML strings into a PHP array while retaining the level depths of the XML but all attributes are ignored.
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/** * Simple XML to array conversion. * * Warning: Ignores all attributes! * * Link: http://18.237.84.250/?p=79 * * @author johnro * @param xml $string */ function convert_xml_to_array($string) { $parser = xml_parser_create(); xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0); xml_parse_into_struct($parser, $string, $vals, $index); xml_parser_free($parser); $array = array(); $curr = &$array; $levels = array(); $item = array(); foreach($vals as $val) { switch($val['type']) { case 'open': if(!empty($item)) { foreach($item as $key => $value) { $curr[$key] = $value; } $item = array(); } $levels[$val['level']] = &$curr; $curr[$val['tag']] = array(); $curr = &$curr[$val['tag']]; break; case 'complete': $item[$val['tag']] = $val['value']; break; case 'close': if(!empty($item)) { foreach($item as $key => $value) { $curr[$key] = $value; } $item = array(); } $curr = &$levels[$val['level']]; break; } } return $array; } |
The following is a sample XML:
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<?xml version="1.0"?> <note> <to>Everyone</to> <from>John</from> <heading>Test</heading> <other> <type>cool</type> <words> <first>cat</first> <second>dog</first> <random> <a>piano</a> <b>flute</a> </random> </words> </other> </note> |
which gets converted to the following array
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array ( 'note' => array ( 'to' => 'Everyone', 'from' => 'John', 'heading' => 'Test', 'other' => array ( 'type' => 'cool', 'words' => array ( 'first' => 'cat', 'second' => array ( ), ), ), ), ) |
To complete this library, I have also included a function to convert the array back to XML string.
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/** * Simple array to XML conversion. * * Warning: Ignores all attributes! * * Link: http://18.237.84.250/?p=79 * * @author johnro * @param array $array * @param string $namespace */ function convert_array_to_xml($array, $namespace = '') { $xml = ''; foreach($array as $key => $value) { if(is_array($value)) { $value = convert_array_to_xml($value); } $xml .= "<$key" . rtrim(" $namespace") . ">$value</$key>"; } return $xml; } |
Feel free to use and any word of advice is appreciated.
i enhanced it a bit:
/**
* Simple array to XML conversion.
*
* Warning: Ignores all attributes!
*
* Link: http://18.237.84.250/?p=79
*
* @author johnro
* @param array $array
* @param string $namespace
*/
function array2xml($array, $depth=0, $namespace = ”) {
$nl=”
“;
$tab=” “;
$xml = ”;
foreach($array as $key => $value) {
if(is_array($value)) {
$value = array2xml($value,$depth+1);
}
if(is_numeric($key)){
$key_start=’item nr=”‘.$key.'”‘;
$key_end=’item’;
}else {
$key_start=$key;
$key_end=$key;
}
if(isset($value[0]) and $value[0]=='<') {
// childnote:
$xml .= $nl.str_repeat($tab,$depth)."” . $nl.str_repeat($tab,$depth+1) . ($value) . $nl . str_repeat($tab,$depth) . “”;
} else $xml .= $nl.str_repeat($tab,$depth).”” . XMLStrFormat($value) . “”;
}
return trim($xml);
}
function XMLStrFormat($str){
/* In XML gilt wie in HTML: Zeichen, die bei der XML-Syntax besondere Bedeutung haben,
müssen Sie umschreiben, wenn Sie sie im normalen Text zwischen den Tags verwenden wollen.
Folgende Zeichen sind betroffen:
Zeichen Notation in XML
>
& &
” "
‘ '
*/
$str = str_replace(“&”, “&”, $str);
$str = str_replace(“”, “>”, $str);
$str = str_replace(“‘”, “'”, $str);
$str = str_replace(“””, “"”, $str);
$str = str_replace(”
“, “”, $str);
// xml generates an error for some characters below Ascii(32) (space):
$str = str_replace(chr(11), “”, $str);
$str = strtr($str,$GLOBALS[‘asc2uni’]);
return $str;
}
$GLOBALS[‘asc2uni’] = Array();
for($i=128;$i<256;$i++){
$GLOBALS['asc2uni'][chr($i)] = "&#x".dechex($i).";";
}
snippet here:
http://snippets.tan3.de/categories/php/snippets/array2xml