Question

I’m hitting a wall in PHP and could use your help.

# php -v
PHP 5.3.2 (cli) (built: Jun  4 2010 19:29:54) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
    with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.3.20, Copyright (c) 2002-2010, by ionCube Ltd.

I have the following code:

$forwards  = $xmlapi->api2_query($account, "Email", "listforwards");
var_dump($forwards);
$mailboxes = $xmlapi->api2_query($account, "Email", "listpops");
var_dump($mailboxes);
$emails    = array();
if($mailboxes->event->result != 1) {
    wp_die( __('Not able to fetch full NN email list: '.$mailboxes->event->reason));
}
elseif($forwards->event->result != 1) {
    wp_die( __('Not able to fetch full NN email list: '.$forwards->event->reason));
}
else {
    $extract_forward_emails = create_function('$f','return $f->dest;');
    $extract_mailbox_emails = create_function('$f','return $f->email;');

    $emails = array_merge(
        array_map($extract_mailbox_emails, $mailboxes->data),
        array_map($extract_forward_emails, $forwards->data)
    );
}

It returns the following:

object(SimpleXMLElement)#121 (5) {
  ["apiversion"]=>
  string(1) "2"
  ["data"]=>
  array(60) {
    [0]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#182 (6) {
      ["dest"]=>
      string(17) "xxxxxxx"
      ["forward"]=>
      string(20) "xxxxxxx"
      ["html_dest"]=>
      string(17) "xxxxxxx"
      ["html_forward"]=>
      string(20) "xxxxxxx"
      ["uri_dest"]=>
      string(19) "xxxxxxx"
      ["uri_forward"]=>
      string(22) "adam.brisk%40gmail.com"
    }
    [1]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#181 (6) {...}
    ...
  }
  ["event"]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#122 (1) {
    ["result"]=>
    string(1) "1"
  }
  ["func"]=>
  string(12) "listforwards"
  ["module"]=>
  string(5) "Email"
}
object(SimpleXMLElement)#122 (5) {
  ["apiversion"]=>
  string(1) "2"
  ["data"]=>
  array(28) {
    [0]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#151 (2) {
      ["email"]=>
      string(19) "xxxxxxx"
      ["login"]=>
      string(19) "xxxxxxx"
    }
    [1]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#181 (2) {...}
    ...
  }
  ["event"]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#123 (1) {
    ["result"]=>
    string(1) "1"
  }
  ["func"]=>
  string(8) "listpops"
  ["module"]=>
  string(5) "Email"
}


Warning:  array_map() [function.array-map]: Argument #2 should be an array in xxxxxx on line 61

Warning:  array_map() [function.array-map]: Argument #2 should be an array in xxxxxx on line 62

Warning:  array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in xxxxxx on line 63

Somehow, the data fields seem to have lost their Array nature. I can’t figure out why this is… can anyone point me in the right direction here, please?

Update

Even stranger. The following code:

$forwards = $xmlapi->api2_query($account, "Email", "listforwards");
print "Result: ".$forwards->event->result;
print "\n";
var_dump($forwards->data);
foreach ($forwards->data as $forward) {
  print $forward->dest."\n";
}
print "\nCompleted\n";

Returns

Result: 1
object(SimpleXMLElement)#5 (6) {
  ["dest"]=>
  string(17) "xxxxxx"
  ["forward"]=>
  string(20) "xxxxxx"
  ["html_dest"]=>
  string(17) "xxxxxx"
  ["html_forward"]=>
  string(20) "xxxxxx"
  ["uri_dest"]=>
  string(19) "xxxxxx"
  ["uri_forward"]=>
  string(22) "xxxxxx"
}
xxxxxx
yyyyyy
.
.
.
zzzzzz

Completed

So, I can run foreach against it, but if I dump it, I only get the first element… is this normal?

Answer 1

SimpleXML uses a lot of magic overloading. In some cases, this is not entirely transparent to PHP. For example, if an object implements the Traversable interface, it’s traversable using foreach, but does not in any other respect behave like an array. I don’t know the exact implementation of the SimpleXMLElement in this case, but I’m sure you’re bumping up against something like this.

For example, SimpleXMLElement::children cites this as a usage example:

foreach ($xml->children() as $second_gen)

while the method signature is

public SimpleXMLElement SimpleXMLElement::children ([ string $ns [, bool $is_prefix = false ]] )

with this note:

SimpleXML has made a rule of adding iterative properties to most methods. They cannot be viewed using var_dump() or anything else which can examine objects.

So, ->data is not actually an array. It just behaves like one under certain circumstances and poses as one for simplicity. In fact, it’s not even a real property of the object, but something returned via __get.