Question

I am using an API from the book website biblio, after inputting the parameters and querying a book I get a normal string returned, for some reason they do not return the string in an xml format, My question… is there a simple way to convert plain string to xml in php?

plain string example

Book ID: 524072799
Author: George R. R. Martin
Title: A Song of Ice and Fire, 7 Volumes 
Description: Harper Voyager, 2012. New and in stock.. Paperback. New. Book. 
ISBN: 9780007477159
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Date: 2012
Currency: GBP
Price: 55.00
Bookseller: El Pinarillo Books 
Bookseller_Location: GBR
URL: http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=524072799
Shipping Ground: 3.15 
Shipping Expedited: 3.95

Answer 1

Here is an alternative, you can take advantage of php array (no preg_match needed or XML):

// The string returned;
$string = <<<STRING
Book ID: 524072799
Author: George R. R. Martin
......
Shipping Ground: 3.15 
Shipping Expedited: 3.95
STRING;

You can start by spliting it per line

$lines = explode("\n",$string);

Then you save it as key pair value in an array

$result = array();
foreach($lines as $line){
   list($key,value) = explode(":",$line);
   $result[trim($key)] = trim($value);
}

Now you can access anyline like so

echo $result['Book ID']; // 524072799
echo $result['Author']; //  George R. R. Martin

and so on. I hope this is what you are looking for