php XML to Array Simplest way.

• Tweet

• Tweet

I thought I should share this with you.

There are many times when you wish to convert your XML to a PHP Array.

Two things you should know

1. There is no inbuilt PHP function to address this problem
2. There are many ways to address this problem

Well lets get started.

Say you have an XML such as one below

$xml=  '<persons>
     <person>
       <name>Jaspreet Chahal</name>
       <age>33</age>
       <city>Melbourne</city>
     </person>
     <person>
       <name>Yuvraaj Chahal</name>
       <age>2</age>
       <city>Adelaide</city>  
     </person>
  </persons>';

Now do this

$xmlObj = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$json = json_encode($xmlObj);
$arr= json_decode($json);

Now just print that array as

print_r($arr);

You will get result similar to this

stdClass Object
(
    [person] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [name] => Jaspreet Chahal
                    [age] => 33
                    [city] => Melbourne
                )
 
            [1] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [name] => Yuvraaj Chahal
                    [age] => 2
                    [city] => Adelaide
                )
 
        )
 
)

Said that this is not a full or optimal solution because this method does not handle Element Attributes well. More interesting and good approach will be the one shown below. Please note: The Code below is taken from PHP.net. I did not write this code. I’ve changed it a bit to accept XML as string rather than reading from file.

function xml2array($contents, $get_attributes = 1, $priority = 'tag')
{
    if (!function_exists('xml_parser_create'))
    {
        return array ();
    }
    $parser = xml_parser_create();
    xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_TARGET_ENCODING, "UTF-8");
    xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);
    xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_SKIP_WHITE, 1);
    xml_parse_into_struct($parser, trim($contents), $xml_values);
    xml_parser_free($parser);
    if (!$xml_values)
        return; 
    $xml_array = array ();
    $parents = array ();
    $opened_tags = array ();
    $arr = array ();
    $current = & $xml_array;
    $repeated_tag_index = array (); 
    foreach ($xml_values as $data)
    {
        unset ($attributes, $value);
        extract($data);
        $result = array ();
        $attributes_data = array ();
        if (isset ($value))
        {
            if ($priority == 'tag')
                $result = $value;
            else
                $result['value'] = $value;
        }
        if (isset ($attributes) and $get_attributes)
        {
            foreach ($attributes as $attr => $val)
            {
                if ($priority == 'tag')
                    $attributes_data[$attr] = $val;
                else
                    $result['attr'][$attr] = $val; //Set all the attributes in a array called 'attr'
            }
        }
        if ($type == "open")
        { 
            $parent[$level -1] = & $current;
            if (!is_array($current) or (!in_array($tag, array_keys($current))))
            {
                $current[$tag] = $result;
                if ($attributes_data)
                    $current[$tag . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
                $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
                $current = & $current[$tag];
            }
            else
            {
                if (isset ($current[$tag][0]))
                {
                    $current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]] = $result;
                    $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++;
                }
                else
                { 
                    $current[$tag] = array (
                        $current[$tag],
                        $result
                    ); 
                    $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 2;
                    if (isset ($current[$tag . '_attr']))
                    {
                        $current[$tag]['0_attr'] = $current[$tag . '_attr'];
                        unset ($current[$tag . '_attr']);
                    }
                }
                $last_item_index = $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] - 1;
                $current = & $current[$tag][$last_item_index];
            }
        }
        elseif ($type == "complete")
        {
            if (!isset ($current[$tag]))
            {
                $current[$tag] = $result;
                $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
                if ($priority == 'tag' and $attributes_data)
                    $current[$tag . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
            }
            else
            {
                if (isset ($current[$tag][0]) and is_array($current[$tag]))
                {
                    $current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]] = $result;
                    if ($priority == 'tag' and $get_attributes and $attributes_data)
                    {
                        $current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
                    }
                    $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++;
                }
                else
                {
                    $current[$tag] = array (
                        $current[$tag],
                        $result
                    ); 
                    $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] = 1;
                    if ($priority == 'tag' and $get_attributes)
                    {
                        if (isset ($current[$tag . '_attr']))
                        { 
                            $current[$tag]['0_attr'] = $current[$tag . '_attr'];
                            unset ($current[$tag . '_attr']);
                        }
                        if ($attributes_data)
                        {
                            $current[$tag][$repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level] . '_attr'] = $attributes_data;
                        }
                    }
                    $repeated_tag_index[$tag . '_' . $level]++; //0 and 1 index is already taken
                }
            }
        }
        elseif ($type == 'close')
        {
            $current = & $parent[$level -1];
        }
    }
    return ($xml_array);
}

So now lets change the above XML to look like this

$xml=  '<persons>
     <person n="2">
       <name>Jaspreet Chahal</name>
       <age id="1">33</age>
       <city>Melbourne</city>
     </person>
     <person>
       <name>Yuvraaj Chahal</name>
       <age>2</age>
       <city>Adelaide</city>  
     </person>
  </persons>';

and then pass the above XML to xml2array() shown below

print_r(xml2array($xml));

Array
(
    [persons] => Array
        (
            [person] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [name] => Jaspreet Chahal
                            [age] => 33
                            [age_attr] => Array
                                (
                                    [id] => 1
                                )
 
                            [city] => Melbourne
                        )
 
                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [name] => Yuvraaj Chahal
                            [age] => 2
                            [city] => Adelaide
                        )
 
                    [0_attr] => Array
                        (
                            [n] => 2
                        )
 
                )
 
        )
 
)

I hope this helps because it helped me immensely.

Cheers