Loop through an Associative Arrays after parsing an XML document

Question

I used a Class to parse an XML-file. The XML-file looks like that:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<user>
   <name id="1">John Mal</name>
   <addr>123 N 45</addr>
   <phone id="5">555.55.222</phone>
</user>

The result of parsing is an -associative Arrays:

Array (
    [0] => Array (
        [name] => USER
        [content] =>
        [child] => Array(
            [0] => Array(
                [name] => NAME
                [attrs] => Array([ID] => 1)
                [content] => John Mal
            )
            [1] => Array(
                [name] => ADDR
                [content] => 123 N 45
            )
            [2] => Array(
                [name] => PHONE
                [attrs] => Array([ID] => 5)
                [content] => 555.55.222
            )
        )
    )
)

My problem is how to traverse the array and get the information inside. For example I want to get the first id and the content of the name -tag and so one in a separate lines because after that I want to write all the information in a text-file. How to do that? Any help is very appreciate.

Answer 1

That parse function doesn't look particular useful for what you're trying to achieve.
You might be interested in SimpleXML instead.

<?php
$user = new SimpleXMLElement(data());
echo 'name=', $user->name,' id=', $user->name['id'], PHP_EOL;
echo 'addr=', $user->addr, PHP_EOL;
echo 'phone=', $user->phone,' id=', $user->phone['id'], PHP_EOL;



function data() {
    return <<< eox
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<user>
   <name id="1">John Mal</name>
   <addr>123 N 45</addr>
   <phone id="5">555.55.222</phone>
</user>
eox;
}

Answer 2

I'd vote for a parser like DOM or SimpleXml for powerful features over an array. If you have to use the array though...

this is how to access a specific datum in your complex array directly:

var_dump($a[0]['child'][0]['content']);

Output:

string(8) "John Mal"

Iteration:

foreach ($a as $set) {

    echo $set['name'] . PHP_EOL;
    echo $set['content'] . PHP_EOL;
    echo "----------------" . PHP_EOL;

    foreach ($set['child'] as $item) {

        foreach ($item as $key => $value) {

            echo "$key: $value" . PHP_EOL;
        }
    }
}    

Output:

USER
CONTENT
----------------
name: NAME
attrs: Array
content: John Mal
name: ADDR
content: 123 N 45
name: PHONE
attrs: Array
content: 123.345  

see it in action and play around with it: https://eval.in/530409