PHP and XML - Is this the right forum?...

[drew7721]

Hey! I'm trying to get a php code to read, mod and display information from an xml or RSS file.. and it's really more that a mess. Everyone told me it's easy but there must be something i'm doing wrong.

 

First, the projet is to get Tv Shows news to display on a site. I got the api and RSS feeds form TVrage.com site and they update the xml contend daily, so all I need to do is to get the file and save it on my server for faster reading. (that I know how).

Here is a sample of an rss file with the new shows that will play today :

<?xml version="1.0"?>
   <channel>
<title>TVrage</title>
<link>http://www.tvrage.com/</link>
<description>TVrage</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<pubDate>Thu, Jun 3 2010 11:23:56 PDT</pubDate>

<ttl>60</ttl>
<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>

<item>
<title>08:00 pm</title>
<link>http://www.tvrage.com</link>
</item>

      <item>
         <title>- Good Eats (14x02)</title>
         <link>http://www.tvrage.com/Good_Eats</link>
         <description>Grillus Domesticus</description>

      </item>
      <item>
         <title>- So You Think You Can Dance (07x03)</title>
         <link>http://www.tvrage.com/So_You_Think_You_Can_Dance</link>
         <description>Auditions #5 and #6 / Vegas Callbacks, Part 1</description>
      </item>
      <item>

         <title>- My First Place (13x05)</title>
         <link>http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-6829</link>
         <description>Buying a Home Sight Unseen</description>
      </item>
      <item>
         <title>- WWE Superstars (02x08)</title>
         <link>http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-22359</link>

         <description>060310</description>
      </item>
 </channel>

 

now I saved this file as today.xml on my server and it updates every 24 hours trough a php code fread() etc..

 

What I want to do is to only display the titles of the shows that will play today, no time, no description or link.

Is there a way to do that? I'm sure there is, but i'm really new to this whole xml thing and I don't get it. I mean I have no problems to work with a MySql db but this, xml, my brain just does not process it!

 

This is the piece of code I got so far from W3 schools :

<?php

$xml = simplexml_load_file("today.xml");

echo $xml->getName() . "<br />";

foreach($xml->children() as $child)
  {
  echo $child->getName() . ": " . $child . "<br />";
  }

?>

 

As you can see if you test it, it does not do quite what I want it to do.

 

P.S. I'm not sure if I am in the right  section of forum, sorry.. did not find any related articles to xml issues.

Thank's in advance 4 your help.

[dabaR]

Hi there.

 

Please read this: http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,300076.msg1420283.html#msg1420283 , play with modifying it to your need a bit, and ask again for help when you get stuck.

[ignace]

libxml_use_internal_errors(true);

$dom = new DomDocument();
if ($dom->load('today.xml')) {
  $xpath = new DomXPath($dom);
  foreach ($xpath->query('//item/title') as $node) {
    echo $node->nodeValue, "<br>\n";
  }
}

[drew7721]

nice! thx for the replys I'll test them out and get back to you asap!

 

I hope this works!

[drew7721]

hey ignace! tried your version and it works great! Is there a place where I can read more on the funcions you used there and if there are more xml functions I can use... hard to find some good techniques and examples..

 

thx.

[ignace]

http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php

http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.domxpath.php

 

In the left sidebar you can find more XML-related classes.

 

You can learn XPath here: http://w3schools.com/xpath/default.asp