I have a function which uses simplexml to return the first level of nodes in an XML file and write it into an unordered list:
function printAssetMap() {
$xml = simplexml_load_file(X_ASSETS);
$assets = $xml->asset;
$html = '<ul>'."\n";
foreach ($assets as $asset) {
$html .= '<li id="asset'.$asset->asset_assetid.'"><ins> </ins><a href="#">'.$asset->asset_name.' ['.$asset->asset_assetid.']</a></li>'."\n";
}//end foreach
$html .= '</ul>'."\n";
return $html;
}// printAssetMap()
XML I am using, that has nested nodes:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<assets>
<asset>
<asset_name>Home</asset_name>
<asset_url>/home</asset_url>
<asset_assetid>1</asset_assetid>
</asset>
<asset>
<asset_name>Projects</asset_name>
<asset_url>/projects</asset_url>
<asset_assetid>2</asset_assetid>
<asset>
<asset_name>Portfolio</asset_name>
<asset_url>/projects/portfolio</asset_url>
<asset_assetid>3</asset_assetid>
</asset>
<asset>
<asset_name>Current Jobs</asset_name>
<asset_url>/projects/current-jobs</asset_url>
<asset_assetid>4</asset_assetid>
</asset>
</asset>
</assets>
Now, I am starting to add child nodes of the nodes that I am currently returning. Is there a way to loop through ALL levels of child nodes in an xml file, even if I don't know how many levels there are, and add those to my list?
So basically what you need to do is a function that takes each <asset/>
child of current node, builds the HTML then checks if the current node has <asset/>
children of its own and keeps recursing deeper down the tree.
Here's how you can do it:
function printAssetMap()
{
return printAssets(simplexml_load_file(X_ASSETS));
}
function printAssets(SimpleXMLElement $parent)
{
$html = "<ul>\n";
foreach ($parent->asset as $asset)
{
$html .= printAsset($asset);
}
$html .= "</ul>\n";
return $html;
}
function printAsset(SimpleXMLElement $asset)
{
$html = '<li id="asset'.$asset->asset_assetid.'"><ins> </ins><a href="#">'.$asset->asset_name.' ['.$asset->asset_assetid.']</a>';
if (isset($asset->asset))
{
// has <asset/> children
$html .= printAssets($asset);
}
$html .= "</li>\n";
return $html;
}
By the way, I would expect a function named "printX" to actually print or echo something, rather than return it. Perhaps you should name those functions "buildX" ?
you need to use a recursive function. here is an example that outputs an array from XML. It is from the PHP docs - http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.simplexml.php. You can amend this to output a list.
<?php
function XMLToArray($xml)
{
if ($xml instanceof SimpleXMLElement) {
$children = $xml->children();
$return = null;
}
foreach ($children as $element => $value) {
if ($value instanceof SimpleXMLElement) {
$values = (array)$value->children();
if (count($values) > 0) {
$return[$element] = XMLToArray($value);
} else {
if (!isset($return[$element])) {
$return[$element] = (string)$value;
} else {
if (!is_array($return[$element])) {
$return[$element] = array($return[$element], (string)$value);
} else {
$return[$element][] = (string)$value;
}
}
}
}
}
if (is_array($return)) {
return $return;
} else {
return $false;
}
}
?>
<?php
function all_nodes($xml){
$all=array();
function add($node){
array_push($all,$node);
foreach($node as $child){
add($child);
}
}
add($xml->documentElement);
return $all;
}
?>
This will return an array with all nodes in the document.