Question

I’m using xpath to query my xml for “result items that have the name “FT” but I know some result items do not, as it is a live feed. Would I be able to assign these ‘non-objects’ a value so I could input them into my mysql as well as the values returned?

Here are parts of my xml with result items:

 <live>
    <Match ct="0" id="771597" LastPeriod="2 HF" LeagueCode="19984" LeagueSort="1"              LeagueType="LEAGUE" startTime="15:00" status="2 HF" statustype="live" type="2" visible="1">

        <Home id="11676" name="Manchester City" standing="1"/>
    <Away id="10826" name="Newcastle United" standing="3"/>

        <Results>
        <Result id="1" name="CURRENT" value="1-1"/>
            <Result id="2" name="FT" value="1-1"/>
            <Result id="3" name="HT" value="1-0"/>
        </Results>
    </Match>

    <Match ct="0" id="771599" LastPeriod="1 HF" LeagueCode="19984" LeagueSort="1" LeagueType="LEAGUE" startTime="16:00" status="2 HF" statustype="live" type="2" visible="1">

        <Home id="11678" name="Norwich City" standing="1"/>
    <Away id="10828" name="West Ham United" standing="3"/>

    <Results>
            <Result id="1" name="Current" value="2-3"/>
            <Result id="2" name="HT" value="1-3"/>
        </Results>
    </Match>
    </live>

I’m trying to get all the scores with name ‘FT’ by this bit of php:

$result = $xpath->query('./Results/Result[@name="FT"]', $match);
    $halftimescore = $result->item(0)->getAttribute("value");

I’ve changed the above too:

    $result = $xpath->query('./Results/Result[@name="FT"]', $match);

      if($result->length > 0) {
      $halftimescore = $result->item(0)->getAttribute("value");
}

which removes the error but I get the FT values 1-1, 3-0 and for the non-object it repeats 3-0

Answer 1

Your xpath query seems like it’s made inside a loop of $matches.

If there is no FT result for the current <Match>, it’s normal that $halftimescore holds the value of the previous one if you didn’t initialize its value at the beginning of your loop.

You need to either initialize $halftimescore for each <Match>

$halftimescore = null;
$result = $xpath->query('./Results/Result[@name="FT"]', $match);
if($result->length > 0) {
  $halftimescore = $result->item(0)->getAttribute("value");
}

Or use an else statement:

$result = $xpath->query('./Results/Result[@name="FT"]', $match);
if($result->length > 0) {
  $halftimescore = $result->item(0)->getAttribute("value");
} else {
  $halftimescore = null;
}

By the way, as there can only be one FT score for a Match, I would use $result->length === 1 to test the xpath result instead.