Question

I have a javascript image gallery which is getting data from an XML file. Im in the process of building a backend function in order for someone else to easy update the gallery. All the data required in the XML file, is available to me from a table in my database.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<portfolio>
<items> 
    <item>
        <thumbnail>images/banner001.jpg</thumbnail>
        <preview>images/preview.jpg</preview>
        <category>banner</category>
        <description>Swatch MTV </description>
    </item>
    <item>
        <thumbnail>images/banner002.jpg</thumbnail>
        <preview>images/preview.jpg</preview>
        <category>banner,campaign</category>
        <description>Nike iD</description>
    </item>
    <item>
        <thumbnail>images/banner003.jpg</thumbnail>
        <preview>images/preview.jpg</preview>
        <category>banner</category>
        <description>Sony Handycam</description>
    </item>
    <item>
        <thumbnail>images/banner006.jpg</thumbnail>
        <preview>images/preview.jpg</preview>
        <category>banner</category>
        <description>Statoil App kampagne</description>
    </item>     
    <item>
        <thumbnail>images/design006.jpg</thumbnail>
        <preview>images/preview.jpg</preview>
        <category>web</category>
        <description>Hempel Website design</description>
    </item>

</items>
</portfolio>

In this regard I have a couple of questions (please keep in mind that im fairly new to php):

1. which is the better/easier option: update the existing xml file or simply overwrite the entire xml file with newer/updated data?
2. how do I create the same xml format using php?
3. I have been looking at both SimpleXML and the DOMDocument. Which one is better/easier to use in my case?

I would be grateful for any help you guys can give me. If posting code, please include a short description/explanation.

Please let me know if you need anything clarified.

Answer 1

I think it is easy when you overwrite the entire xml file with newer/updated data. Below is the php file which creates the xml data by connecting to the database.

test.php

<?php header('Content-type: application/xml');echo "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>";

    //connect to db here
    $query1 = "select datas";
    $res1   = mysql_query($query1);
    echo '<portfolio>';
    echo '<items>';
    while($row1 = mysql_fetch_array($res1)) 
    {
    ?>
      <item>
        <thumbnail><?php echo $row1['yourdata1']; ?></thumbnail>
        <preview><?php echo $row1['yourdata2']; ?></preview>
        <category><?php echo $row1['yourdata3']; ?></category>
        <description><?php echo $row1['yourdata4']; ?></description>
      </item>
   <?php
   } 
  ?>
  </items>
</portfolio>

If the above filename is test.php, then you can write .htaccess redirection to redirect the url to .php file when the url is given as .xml

Below code redirects to test.php when the url is given as http://yoursitename.com/test.xml

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} test.xml
RewriteRule test.xml test.php [L]