Question

I am trying to find a way to iterate through an XML recordset containing a namespace. However, I don’t know the field names in advance. Sample XML is below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<string xmlns="http://www.site.com/SMART/Updates">
<NewDataSet>
    <record>
        <FIELD1>data1</FIELD1>
        <FIELD2>data2</FIELD2>
        <FIELD3>data3</FIELD3>
    </record>
    <record>
        <FIELD1>data1</FIELD1>
        <FIELD2>data2</FIELD2>
        <FIELD3>data3</FIELD3>
    </record>
</NewDataSet>

Again, I won’t know the field names in advance. I need read the namespace, find the name of the root element (“NewDataSet”, in this case) and then need to get the field names and values of the individual elements. I have tried to use $xml->getname(), and $xml->xpath(‘\’) to find the root element name, but been unable to crack it.

Answer 1

(as discussed in Chat)

Plain DOM functions are the best way to process XML.

Demo or code:

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
$xml = <<<END
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<string xmlns="http://www.site.com/SMART/Updates">
<NewDataSet>
    <record>
        <FIELD1>data1</FIELD1>
        <FIELD2>data2</FIELD2>
        <FIELD3>data3</FIELD3>
    </record>
    <record>
        <FIELD1>data1</FIELD1>
        <FIELD2>data2</FIELD2>
        <FIELD3>data3</FIELD3>
    </record>
</NewDataSet>
</string>
END;
$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$dom->normalize();
$dom->loadXML($xml);
echo 'Root element name: ' . $dom->firstChild->firstChild->tagName . PHP_EOL;
echo 'Number of child elements: ' . count($dom->firstChild->firstChild->childNodes) . PHP_EOL;
echo '=====' . PHP_EOL . PHP_EOL;
echo print_node($dom->firstChild->firstChild);
function print_node($node, $level = 0, $prev_level = 0) {
    $result = '';
    if($node->hasChildNodes()) {
        foreach($node->childNodes as $subnode) {
            $result .= str_repeat('    ', $level) . $node->tagName . ' =>' . PHP_EOL;
            $result .= print_node($subnode, $level + 1, $level) . PHP_EOL;
        }
    } else {
        if(trim($node->nodeValue) !== '') {
            $result .= str_repeat('    ', $level) . '**Data: ' . trim($node->nodeValue) . PHP_EOL;
        }
    }
    return $result;
}
?>

Output:

Root element name: NewDataSet
Number of child elements: 1
=====

NewDataSet =>
    record =>
        FIELD1 =>
            **Data: data1


    record =>
        FIELD2 =>
            **Data: data2


    record =>
        FIELD3 =>
            **Data: data3



NewDataSet =>
    record =>
        FIELD1 =>
            **Data: data1


    record =>
        FIELD2 =>
            **Data: data2


    record =>
        FIELD3 =>
            **Data: data3