Question

I have 2 questions:

1-I need to parse XML file and insert the data into mysql database. Let’s say that the file is around 250 kB (but it could be even larger) and it has a lot of subnodes, so I need at least 3 tables. I parsed the xml with SimpleXml and successfully inserted all the data into db. But for this exact file it took around 160s which seems to me a lot.
Is there a method to do better, in lesser time?

And another question is that I need to get the XML file from an URL and save to the server, and I’m not sure how to do this …

Thanks for your answers.

The code for parsing xml

function parse_xml($file=""){
  global $database;
  if(file_exists($file) && !empty($file)){
      $sport = new SimpleXMLElement($file, null, true);    
      $count = count($sport->OddsObject)-1;
      $listAttr = array();
      $start_time = time();
      for($i=0; $i <= $count; $i++){
          $countMatch = count($sport->OddsObject[$i]->Matches->Match)-1;
          //echo $countMatch; 
          for($k=0; $k <= $countMatch; $k++){           
              $OOdata = $sport->OddsObject[$i]->children();
              $columns = array();
              $data = array();
              foreach($OOdata as $key => $value){            
                  if($key != "Matches"){
                      //$listAttr[$i][$key] = $attr;
                      $columns[] = $key;
                      if ($value != "") {
                          $data[] = "'" . $database->escape_value($value) . "'";
                    } else {
                         $data[] = "NULL";
                    }
                }
            }        

            //get matches: MatchId, Date, HomeTeam, AwayTeam
            $Mdata = $sport->OddsObject[$i]->Matches->Match[$k]->children();     
            foreach ( $Mdata as $key => $value) {
                if($key != "OddsData"){    
                    $columns[] = $key;
                    if ($value != "") {
                      $data[] = "'" . $database->escape_value($value) . "'";
                    } else {
                      $data[] = "NULL";
                    }    
                }
            }                      
            $cols = strtolower(implode(",",$columns));
            $values = implode(",",$data);
            $sql = "INSERT INTO sports($cols) values(".$values.")";
            if($database->query($sql)) {
                $last_id = $database->insert_id();

                $countData = count($sport->OddsObject[$i]->Matches->Match[$k]->OddsData)-1;
                for($t=0; $t <= $countData; $t++){
                    //get OddsData: Home-,Draw-, -Away ...
                    $ODdata = $sport->OddsObject[$i]->Matches->Match[$k]->OddsData[$t]->children();
                    foreach($ODdata as $key=>$attr){
                        $MID = $last_id;
                        $new_bet = Bet::make($attr->getName(),$attr, $MID);
                        $new_bet->save(); 

                    }                    
                }
            }
        }
        $end_time = time() - $start_time;
    }    
    return $end_time;
}
else{
    die("The file doesn't exist.");
}
}

Answer 1

A pretty easy way to get a file from a url and write it is file_get_contents() and file_put_contents().

SimpleXML should be pretty efficient and fast on a file thats only 250kb. Your slowness might be with your database inserts. Try grouping your inserts to the database. I’ve found that running 50 inserts at a time usually works the best(this depends on the row size though). That will probably speed up the whole process quite a bit.