Question

Please check this bellow program.

::Program::

      <?php
      $xml='
      &lt;books&gt;
           &lt;book&gt;
                &lt;name&gt;Java complete reference&lt;/name&gt;
                &lt;cost&gt;256&lt;/cost&gt;
           &lt;/book&gt;

           &lt;book&gt;
                &lt;name&gt;Head First PHP and Mysql&lt;/name&gt;
                &lt;cost&gt;389&lt;/cost&gt;
           &lt;/book&gt;
      &lt;/books&gt;';


      $dom=new DOMDocument();
      $dom->loadXML($xml);
      foreach ($dom->getElementsByTagName('book') as $book)
      {
              foreach($book->getElementsByTagName('name') as $name)
              {
                   $names[]=$name->nodeValue;
              }

              foreach($book->getElementsByTagName('cost') as $cost)
              {
                   $costs[]=$cost->nodeValue;
              }
      }
      print_r($names);
      ?>

It is shows error:

DOMDocument::loadXML() [domdocument.loadxml]: Start tag expected, ‘<‘ not found in Entity

Is this correct way to do this?

If it is correct, Is there any way to get the proper result without changing this < to < and > to >?

Answer 1

You should not be using character entities for < and > on things that are actually XML tags in the string that represents your XML. It should be this:

$xml='
  <books>
       <book>
...

Do that and the warning goes away.

You only need to use character entities for < and > when they are part of the actual data rather than delimiting an XML tag.