create xml from mysql data using php

Question

I have this code:

<?php
header('Content-type: text/xml');

$xmlout = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" ?>\n";
$xmlout .= "<persons>\n";

$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=xxx','root','');
$stmt = $db->prepare("select * from users");
$stmt->execute();
while($row = $stmt->fetch()){
    $xmlout .= "\t<person>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<id>".$row['id']."</id>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<username>".$row['username']."</username>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<password>".$row['password']."</password>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<realname>".$row['realname']."</realname>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<surname>".$row['surname']."</surname>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<email>".$row['email']."</email>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<created>".$row['created']."</created>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t\t<admin>".$row['admin']."</admin>\n";
    $xmlout .= "\t</person>\n";
}

$xmlout .= "</persons>";
echo $xmlout;
?>

and it doesn't work, it have this error:

error on line 2 at column 1: Extra content at the end of the document Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

Does anybody know, where is problem?

Answer 1

What is the \\t (tab) for? Is there a specific reason you are manually declaring it in the code? Have you tried removing it?

Also, try building the XML string before you set the header, then echo out the string.

Answer 2

Consider using DOMDocument class instead of string concatenation to build XML. Possibly the special space and tab characters are conflicting with header output. DOM will pretty print output with its formatOutput method.

header('Content-type: text/xml');

// INITIALIZE DOM OBJECT
$dom = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');
$dom->formatOutput = true;            
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

// CREATE ROOT AND APPEND TO DOCUMENT
$xmlRoot = $dom->createElement("persons");
$xmlRoot = $dom->appendChild($xmlRoot);

// QUERY DATABASE
$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=xxx','root','');
$stmt = $db->prepare("select * from users");
$stmt->execute();

// FETCH ROWS ITERATIVELY
while($row = $stmt->fetch()){
     // APPEND PERSON AS CHILD OF ROOT
     $personNode = $xmlRoot->appendChild($dom->createElement('person'));
     // APPEND CHILDREN TO PERSON         
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('id', $row['id']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('username', $row['username']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('password', $row['password']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('realname', $row['realname']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('surname', $row['surname']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('email', $row['email']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('created', $row['created']));
     $personNode->appendChild($dom->createElement('admin', $row['admin']));
}
$stmt = null; 
$db = null;

// OUTPUT TO SCREEN
echo $dom->saveXML();