How to add data from XML feed to mysql DB

Question

I'm getting a deals feed and want to process it so I can add it my DB. Here is the format it is coming in:

<deals>
 <item>
  <couponid>int</couponid>
  <merchantid>int</merchantid>
  <merchantname>string</merchantname>
  <network>string</network>
  <label>string</label>
  <restrictions>string</restrictions>
  <couponcode>string</couponcode>
  <link>string</link>
  <directlink>string</directlink>
  <startdate>YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM TMZ</startdate>
  <enddate>YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM TMZ</enddate>
  <image>string</image>
  <dealtypes>
   <type>string</type>
  </dealtypes>
  <categories>
   <category>string</category>
  </categories>
  <status>status</status>
  <lastupdated>YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM TMZ</lastupdated>
  <errorreporturl>string</errorreporturl>
  <changeaudit>string</changeaudit>
  <price>string</price>
  <listprice>string</listprice>
  <discount>string</discount>
  <percent>string</percent>
  <local>
     <city>string</city>
     <state>string</state>
     <zipcode>string</zipcode>
     <address>string</address>
     <businessname>string</businessname>
     <businessurl>string</businessurl>
     <title2>string</title2>
     <expirationdate>string</expirationdate>
     <minpurchase>int</minpurchase>
     <maxpurchase>int</maxpurchase>
     <limitedqty>bool</limitedqty>
     <region>string</region>
  </local>
 </item>
</deals>

I can process most of the items using:

'couponid' => $node->getElementsByTagName('couponid')->item(0)->nodeValue

However, how do I process the items within the "local" node. Not all items in the feed have this "local" node. How would I process it? Would this work:

$localData = $node->getElementsByTagName('local')->item(0);
if $localData {
'city' => $node->getElementsByTagName('local')->item(city)->nodeValue;
'state' => $node->getElementsByTagName('local')->item(state)->nodeValue;
etc..
}

Answer 1

As per DOMNodeList ^docs , DOMNodeList::item will return

The node at the indexth position in the DOMNodeList, or NULL if that is not a valid index.

So, no, you can't do $node->getElementsByTagName('local')->item(city) .

When you do this $localData = $node->getElementsByTagName('local')->item(0); your $localData variable is set to a DOMNode object, whose children you can then access like any other DOMNode object's children.

However :

If you're simply reading XML and not writing/appending, PHP's SimpleXML is much simpler to use (hence the name) than DOM and I'd recommend it in your case:

$deals = new SimpleXMLElement($my_xml);

$city  = $deals->item->local->city[0];
$state = (string) $deals->item->local->state;

echo "city:  $city\n";
echo "state: $state\n";

Note that the method using the (string) cast yields the same result as simply referencing the [0] key of the element.

Answer 2

In php you can do the following:

-> Get the xml file :

$myXMLString = file_get_contents($url);
$doc = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'iso-8859-1');
$doc->loadXML($myXMLString);
$deals = $doc->getElementsByTagName("item");

foreach($deals as $item){
   functionDeals($item);
}

Then in function "functionDeals" extract the sub element the same way. Otherwise the esiest way is to use Hibernate (Java): follow this link http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/mapping/

Hope this help