Tip needed: how to stream a compressed (bz2,bzip2,gzip) file through XMLReader

[brycenesbitt]

Is there a way I can readily stream-process a compressed XML file in PHP?  Something like this NON WORKING example:

$reader = new XMLReader();
$reader->open(bzopen($planet_file,"r"));
while ($reader->read()) {
...

See also http://php.net/manual/en/xmlreader.open.php

[requinix]

->open() takes a file location, not an open file handle.

 

If the file is small you could decompress it to memory and point XMLReader there. Otherwise you're probably stuck using temporary files.

[brycenesbitt]

If the file was small, I would not be writing here.  The file is far too big to uncompress.

[requinix]

Well then I'm glad I brought that up because otherwise I would never have known.

 

It occurs to me that you could use a stream wrapper.

$reader->open("compress.bzip2://$planet_file");

Compression streams

[btherl]

Using a named pipe is another possibility, for turning a stream into an openable file.  But if the stream wrapper works, go with that.  It's much simpler.