Can I modify an XML document with PHP

[poleposters]

Hi all,

 

I have a flash page flip script which gets all the image data from an XML document.

 

Is it possible to populate this document with PHP?

 

I want to add it on to my users profile pages so that they can have a page flip photo album dynamically created from their images in my database.

 

I've got most of the PHP basics down, but XML is new to me. I'm going to learn what I can, but in the mean time any advice would be appreciated.

 

Cheers.

[haku]

Yes, you can do it using fopen, fwrite, and fclose.

 

Basically you build a string containing your XML:

 

$string = "<indexes>" . PHP_EOL;
$string .= "<index>" .PHP_EOL;
$string .= "<element>element data</element>" . PHP_EOL;
$string .= "</index>" . PHP_EOL;
$string .= "</indexes>". PHP_EOL;

 

The PHP_EOL causes a line break that makes your XML easier to read. You can leave them out if you want, they are not essential.

 

Then, you open a file, write to it, and close the file:

 

 $open = fopen("file.xml", "w");
fwrite ($open, $string);
fclose($open);

 

This is super simplified, not complete (no doctype on the xml file etc), and not tested, so there may be some errors in there. But the idea is to show you how to do it, not write the code for you. Good luck, and post back here if you are having some troubles.

[poleposters]

Great!

 

I've created my first file, But since I have to create a file for each registered user I need to give the file an individual name probably based on the user id. ie 35_file.xml

 

Is this possible? Also what is the significance of  "w" in the following line?

 

 $open = fopen("file.xml", "w");

[dev]

w is using only for write to file. If you use 'r' you can only read a file. There's more functions. Like: 'w+' and 'r+' is same. With this you can read and write.

[haku]

I would suggest you read the three links I gave you in my last post. They will tell you exactly what is happening while you are using those commands, and will explain "r", "w" and others.

[poleposters]

Thank you. Didn't read carefully enough.

 

I've tried renaming the file to be created with partial success.

 

This is what I've tried.

$businessid=35
$open = fopen("xml/$businessid._.file.xml", "w");

 

except the file created is 35._.file.xml.

What I want to do is  name the file is 35_file.xml

 

Any ideas?

[chigley]

<?php

$businessid = 35;
$open = fopen("xml/{$businessid}_file.xml", "w");

?>

[poleposters]

Thank you. I've been reading upon concatenation. But I have yet to see that.

 

Very handy. Thank you.