Question

Im really new to php and im trying to load in data from an external xml feed into a php document, then use that data to generate an output.

The xml feed im using is – http://whdn.williamhill.com/pricefeed/openbet_cdn?action=template&template=getHierarchyByMarketType&classId=1&marketSort=–&filterBIR=N

What im trying to do is generate a list of ‘markets’ and there names, so as the xml feed stands at the time of writing the first 3 items in the list would be :

• Scottish Division 1 – Outright – Outright
• Dumbarton v Hamilton – 1st Half Result/2nd Half Result
• Dumbarton v Hamilton – Match Handicaps

at the moment im trying to use the code bellow to achieve this, but im getting nowhere quickly with it, any ideas on what im doing wrong here ?

just a further piece of background, im using php 5.4.4, am i right in thinking that simplexml comes already pre installed.. so i dont need to add any thing additional here ?

<?php 

$xml = simplexml_load_file('http://whdn.williamhill.com/pricefeed/openbet_cdn?action=template&template=getHierarchyByMarketType&classId=1&marketSort=--&filterBIR=N');

foreach ($xml->market as $event) {
  echo $event;
}

?>

Answer 1

You need to drill down through the xml to get the markets, and then get the attributes of the market:

<?php 

$xml = simplexml_load_file('http://whdn.williamhill.com/pricefeed/openbet_cdn?action=template&template=getHierarchyByMarketType&classId=1&marketSort=--&filterBIR=N');

foreach ($xml->response->williamhill->class->type as $type) {
  $type_attrib = $type->attributes();
  echo "<p><h2>Type ".$type_attrib['id'].": ".$type_attrib['name']."</h2>";
  foreach ($type->market as $event) {
    $event_attributes = $event->attributes();
    echo $event_attributes['name']."<br />";
    //commented out the following which prints all attributes
    //replaced by above to just print the name
    /*
    echo "<p>";
    foreach($event->attributes() as $attrib=>$value) {
      echo "$attrib: $value <br />";
    }
    echo "</p>";
    */
  }
  echo "</p>";
}