getAlexaRank($url) function not working

[Jnerocorp]

I have made a function to get alexa rank

the site is here: http://mytestsite.rack111.com/1

 

but the Alexa rank is showing up blank and I dont know why can someone please tell me if there is something wrong with my code

 

 

 

        function getAlexaRank ($url) {
        $xml = simplexml_load_file("http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=s&url=$url");
        return $xml->SD->POPULARITY['TEXT'];

        }

[Daniel0]

Where did you get that API URL?

[Jnerocorp]

do you mean this?: http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=s&url=$url

 

http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=s&url=www.google.com <- example

 

its just the xml file that has the data for alexa rankings

 

but my script that i am working on is supposed to open and read the xml for for the popularity where text="a number here"

 

-John

[Daniel0]

Oh sorry. I was viewing it in Chrome and I forgot that it doesn't work very well with XML files; it showed up blank to me.

 

Anyways, the problem is that it's not returning the string in the attribute, but it's returning a SimpleXMLElement object. Simply casting it explicitly to an int will fix it:

 

function getAlexaRank ($url) {
$xml = simplexml_load_file("http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=s&url=$url");
return (int) $xml->SD->POPULARITY['TEXT'];
}

[Jnerocorp]

ok that code got it to work

 

but now it is always displaying "0" instead of the number that is actually there

[salathe]

What is the actual XML that you're retrieving (use $xml->saveXML() to see it)?

[Daniel0]

Really? It works fine for me.

 

<?php
function getAlexaRank ($url) {
$xml = simplexml_load_file("http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&dat=s&url=$url");
return (int) $xml->SD->POPULARITY['TEXT'];
}

echo getAlexaRank('google.com');    // 1
echo getAlexaRank('phpfreaks.com'); // 11283

[Jnerocorp]

ok found the problem its my hosting im on a free hosting so it doesnt allow certain things 

 

-John

 

thanks for the help