How to convert array to SimpleXML

Question

How can I convert an array to a SimpleXML object in PHP?

Answer 1

// Structered array for XML convertion.
$data_array = array(
  array(
    '#xml_tag' => 'a',
    '#xml_value' => '',
    '#tag_attributes' => array(
      array(
        'name' => 'a_attr_name',
        'value' => 'a_attr_value',
      ),
    ),
    '#subnode' => array(
      array(
        '#xml_tag' => 'aa',
        '#xml_value' => 'aa_value',
        '#tag_attributes' => array(
          array(
            'name' => 'aa_attr_name',
            'value' => 'aa_attr_value',
          ),
        ),
        '#subnode' => FALSE,
      ),
    ),
  ),
  array(
    '#xml_tag' => 'b',
    '#xml_value' => 'b_value',
    '#tag_attributes' => FALSE,
    '#subnode' => FALSE,
  ),
  array(
    '#xml_tag' => 'c',
    '#xml_value' => 'c_value',
    '#tag_attributes' => array(
      array(
        'name' => 'c_attr_name',
        'value' => 'c_attr_value',
      ),
      array(
        'name' => 'c_attr_name_1',
        'value' => 'c_attr_value_1',
      ),
    ),
    '#subnode' => array(
      array(
        '#xml_tag' => 'ca',  
        '#xml_value' => 'ca_value',
        '#tag_attributes' => FALSE,
        '#subnode' => array(
          array(
            '#xml_tag' => 'caa',
            '#xml_value' => 'caa_value',
            '#tag_attributes' => array(
              array(
                'name' => 'caa_attr_name',
                'value' => 'caa_attr_value',
              ),
            ),
            '#subnode' => FALSE,
          ),
        ),
      ),
    ),
  ),
);


// creating object of SimpleXMLElement
$xml_object = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version=\"1.0\"?><student_info></student_info>');


// function call to convert array to xml
array_to_xml($data_array, $xml_object);

// saving generated xml file
$xml_object->asXML('/tmp/test.xml');

/**
 * Converts an structured PHP array to XML.
 *
 * @param Array $data_array
 *   The array data for converting into XML.
 * @param Object $xml_object
 *   The SimpleXMLElement Object
 *
 * @see https://gist.github.com/drupalista-br/9230016
 * 
 */
function array_to_xml($data_array, &$xml_object) {
  foreach($data_array as $node) {
    $subnode = $xml_object->addChild($node['#xml_tag'], $node['#xml_value']);

    if ($node['#tag_attributes']) {
      foreach ($node['#tag_attributes'] as $tag_attributes) {
        $subnode->addAttribute($tag_attributes['name'], $tag_attributes['value']); 
      }
    }

    if ($node['#subnode']) {
      array_to_xml($node['#subnode'], $subnode);
    }
  }
}

Answer 2

other solution:

$marray=array(....);
$options = array(
                "encoding" => "UTF-8",
                "output_type" => "xml", 
                "version" => "simple",
                "escaping" => array("non-ascii, on-print, markup")
                );
$xmlres = xmlrpc_encode_request('root', $marray, $options);
print($xmlres);

Answer 3

So anyway... I took onokazu's code (thanks!) and added the ability to have repeated tags in XML, it also supports attributes, hope someone finds it useful!

 <?php

function array_to_xml(array $arr, SimpleXMLElement $xml) {
        foreach ($arr as $k => $v) {

            $attrArr = array();
            $kArray = explode(' ',$k);
            $tag = array_shift($kArray);

            if (count($kArray) > 0) {
                foreach($kArray as $attrValue) {
                    $attrArr[] = explode('=',$attrValue);                   
                }
            }

            if (is_array($v)) {
                if (is_numeric($k)) {
                    array_to_xml($v, $xml);
                } else {
                    $child = $xml->addChild($tag);
                    if (isset($attrArr)) {
                        foreach($attrArr as $attrArrV) {
                            $child->addAttribute($attrArrV[0],$attrArrV[1]);
                        }
                    }                   
                    array_to_xml($v, $child);
                }
            } else {
                $child = $xml->addChild($tag, $v);
                if (isset($attrArr)) {
                    foreach($attrArr as $attrArrV) {
                        $child->addAttribute($attrArrV[0],$attrArrV[1]);
                    }
                }
            }               
        }

        return $xml;
    }

        $test_array = array (
          'bla' => 'blub',
          'foo' => 'bar',
          'another_array' => array (
            array('stack' => 'overflow'),
            array('stack' => 'overflow'),
            array('stack' => 'overflow'),
          ),
          'foo attribute1=value1 attribute2=value2' => 'bar',
        );  

        $xml = array_to_xml($test_array, new SimpleXMLElement('<root/>'))->asXML();

        echo "$xml\n";
        $dom = new DOMDocument;
        $dom->preserveWhiteSpace = FALSE;
        $dom->loadXML($xml);
        $dom->formatOutput = TRUE;
        echo $dom->saveXml();
    ?>

Answer 4

You may use xmlrpc_encode to create a xml from array if a verbose xml is not a problem. www.php.net/xmlrpc_encode

be careful the xml created differs in case you use associative and/or numeric keys

<?php
// /params/param/value/struct/member
// there is a tag "member" for each element
// "member" contains a tag "name". its value is the associative key
$xml1 = xmlrpc_encode(array('a'=>'b','c'=>'d'));
$simplexml1 = simplexml_load_string($xml1);
print_r($xml1);
print_r($simplexml1);

// /params/param/value/array/data
// there is a tag "data" for each element
// "data" doesn't contain the tag "name"
$xml2 = xmlrpc_encode(array('a','b'));
$simplexml2 = simplexml_load_string($xml2);
print_r($xml2);
print_r($simplexml2);
?>

Answer 5

I wanted a code that will take all the elements inside an array and treat them as attributes, and all arrays as sub elements.

So for something like

array (
'row1' => array ('head_element' =>array("prop1"=>"some value","prop2"=>array("empty"))),
"row2"=> array ("stack"=>"overflow","overflow"=>"overflow")
);

I would get something like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<someRoot>
  <row1>
    <head_element prop1="some value">
      <prop2 0="empty"/>
    </head_element>
  </row1>
  <row2 stack="overflow" overflow="stack"/>
 </someRoot>

To achive this the code is below, but be very careful, it is recursive and may actually cause a stackoverflow :)

function addElements(&$xml,$array)
{
$params=array();
foreach($array as $k=>$v)
{
    if(is_array($v))
        addElements($xml->addChild($k), $v);
    else $xml->addAttribute($k,$v);
}

}
function xml_encode($array)
{
if(!is_array($array))
    trigger_error("Type missmatch xml_encode",E_USER_ERROR);
$xml=new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version=\'1.0\' encoding=\'utf-8\'?><'.key($array).'/>');
addElements($xml,$array[key($array)]);
return $xml->asXML();
} 

You may want to add checks for length of the array so that some element get set inside the data part and not as an attribute.

Answer 6

I found this solution similar to the original problem

<?php

$test_array = array (
  'bla' => 'blub',
  'foo' => 'bar',
  'another_array' => array (
    'stack' => 'overflow',
  ),
);

class NoSimpleXMLElement extends SimpleXMLElement {
 public function addChild($name,$value) {
  parent::addChild($value,$name);
 }
}
$xml = new NoSimpleXMLElement('<root/>');
array_walk_recursive($test_array, array ($xml, 'addChild'));
print $xml->asXML();