Question

I have created a simple method used to accept an array of $key=>$value pairs. I want to loop through that array and build a simpleXML object. The method almost works; however, it overwrites my child nodes through each iteration.

The code:

public function format_comment($fieldValues)
{
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement("<ROOT></ROOT>");
    foreach($fieldValues as $field=>$value)
    {
        if($field=='header')
        {
            $xmlChange = $xml->addChild('CHANGE');
            $xmlChange->addAttribute('field', $value);
        }
        elseif($field=='subheader')
        {
            $newXML = $xmlChange->addChild('NEW');
            $newXML->addAttribute('field', $value);
        }
        elseif($field=='newvalue')
        {
            $xmlNewValue = $newXML->addChild('VALUE', $value);
        }
        elseif($field=='oldvalue')
        {
            $xmlFrom = $xmlChange->addChild('FROM');
            $xmlFrom->addAttribute('field', $field);
            $xmlFromValue = $xmlFrom->addChild('VALUE', $value);
        }
    }
    return($xml->asXML());
}

As input, I am using the following array:

$note_fields = array('header'=>'Communication', 'subheader'=>'contacted', 'newvalue'=>'Dale J Neimeier','header'=>'Communication', 'subheader'=>'note', 'newvalue'=>'blah blah blah', 'header'=>'Communication', 'subheader'=>'note', 'newvalue'=>'new text', 'oldvalue'=>'previous text');

My output is as follows:

<ROOT>
    <CHANGE field="Communication">
        <NEW field="note">
            <VALUE>new text</VALUE>
        </NEW>
        <FROM field="oldvalue">
            <VALUE>previous text</VALUE>
        </FROM>
    </CHANGE>
</ROOT>

I can see that every iteration through my array, the “CHANGE’ tag and all it’s children get overwritten. I just can’t figure out why and how to fix it.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

The problem was actually in the way I constructed the $note_fields array. Since I have repeating keys, they just overwrote each other.