Question

I’m developing a web interface that enables admins to ban/unban particular users from my server whose software depends on an XML file to determine ban status of users. Initially, the ‘Bans.xml’ has the following contents.

    <Bans version="1.036">
      <Nick>
         <Ban>
           <Overrideable enable="false"/>
           <Nick>cray</Nick>
         </Ban>
      </Nick>
    </Bans>

How do I write a php code so that I get the following XML file?

    <Bans version="1.036">
      <Nick>
         <Ban>
           <Overrideable enable="false"/>
           <Nick>cray</Nick>
         </Ban>
         <Ban>
           <Overrideable enable="false"/>
           <Nick>newuser</Nick>
         </Ban>
      </Nick>
    </Bans> 

So far I’ve managed to write the following script:

    <?php
      $xml=new DOMDocument();
      $xml->formatOutput=true;
      $xml->preserveWhiteSpace=false;
      $xml->load("Bans.xml");
      $root=$xml->documentElement;
      $fnode=$root->firstChild;
      $ori=$fnode->childNodes->item(2);
      $nick=$xml->createElement("Nick");
      $nickText=$xml->createTextNode("newuser");
      $nick->appendChild($nickText);
      $ban=$xml->createElement("Ban");
      $ban->appendChild($nick);
      $root->insertBefore($ban,$ori);
      header("Content-type:text/xml");
      $xml->save('Bans.xml');    
     ?>

But all that the above code gives me is:

    <Bans version="1.036">
      <Nick>
        <Ban>
          <Overrideable enable="false"/>
          <Nick>cray</Nick>
        </Ban>
      </Nick>
      <Ban>
        <Nick>Crayaas</Nick>
      </Ban>
    </Bans>   

——–I’ve managed to add the nodes properly by replacing;———

    $root->insertBefore($ban,$ori);

With the following code;

    $fnode->insertBefore($ban,$ori);

My one last question is, how do i remove a particular ban, where nick is equal to a user supplied string stored in the variable $buser. I used the following code. But using $buser in the condition creates errors.

    $buser="newuser";                
    $dom=new DOMDocument();
    $dom->load('settings/Bans.xml');
    $bans=$dom->documentElement;
    $xpath=new DOMXpath($dom);
    $result=$xpath->query('/Bans/Nick/Ban[Nick="$buser"]');
    $result->item(0)->parentNode->removeChild($result->item(0));
    header("Content-type: text/xml");
    $dom->save('settings/Bans.xml');        

Would be glad if this could be answered as well 😉

Answer 1

This:

$root->insertBefore($ban,$ori);

Should be:

$fnode->insertBefore($ban,$ori);

After all, <Nick> is not the rootnode, but the first child of it