Question

Hoping somebody can advise on an issue I have with simplexml.

I need to specify the paths for various nodes but I’m not sure if this is possible.

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$image1 = 'images->image[0]->image';

foreach ($xml->record as $record) {
  echo $record->$image1; // i need this be be recognised as $record->images->image[0]->image
}

Hope this makes sense! Thanks

Answer 1

You can use an array for this:

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$levels = array('images', array('key' => 'image', 'index' => 0), 'image');

foreach ($xml->record as $record) {
   $obj = $record;
   foreach($levels as $level) {
      if(is_array($level)) 
         $obj = $obj->{$level['key']}[$level['index']];
      else 
         $obj = $obj->$level; 
   }
   echo $obj;
}

This builds up the hierarchy by reassigning $obj equal to itself -> whatever is next in the array.

PHP cannot interpolate array indices in strings, so if you need to use them, just use an associate array as shown above. 🙂