XML-Creation problem: Empty node

[Void-Droid]

I am working currently on an OOP based PHP project in MVC style.
For my project i need to create/send/recieve/process XMLs.

Now i have a BIG problem with creating XML-Structures with DOMDocument.
Everytime i create a new XML-Node without an attributes or values, all nodes afterwards will be a child of this node!

In other words: I can not create an empty XML-Node without all nodes afterwards beeing a child of this empty node!!!

This problem bugs me for while now but I really need the way I am dealing right now with the XML creation.
I couldn't find any solutions but some similar problems.

This PHP tests my XmlHandler-Class, which creates the XML-Request:

Test.php:  

<?php

    include "Handler/XmlHandler.php";


    $xmlHandler=new XmlHandler();

    $xmlHandler->CreateNewXmlInstance();
    $root = $xmlHandler->CreateRootNode('RootNode');
    $l1 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel1", "Text1 - This node one has text");
    $l2 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel2", "Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text");
    $l21 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($l2, "NodeLevel2_1", "Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine");
    $l3 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel3", "");
    $l4 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel4", "Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)");

    echo "<p style='display:none;'>".$xmlHandler->SaveXml()."</p>";

?>

Here is the XML-Handler Class which i use to create the XML-Request-Structure (i just posted the neccessary parts of the class here)

XmlHandler.php:  

<?php
    
    class XmlHandler{
        
        
        private $xml;
    
        /**
         *
         *    Constructor
         *
         */
        
        function __construct()
        {
            $this->xml=null;
    
        }
        
        //[...]
            
        /*
        *     Custom XML-Creator Functions
        *
        */
        
        public function CreateNewXmlInstance(){
            /*********************************************/
            /** XML DOM example of building XML Request **/
            /*********************************************/
            $this->xml = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');
            return $this->xml;
        }
        
        public function CreateRootNode($name){
            $rootElement = $this->xml->appendChild( $this->xml->createElement($name) );
            return $rootElement;
        }
        
        public function AppendNodeWithChild($node, $childName, $childText){
            $result = $node->appendChild($this->xml->createElement($childName));
            if(null != $childText && !empty($childText)){
                $result->appendChild( $this->xml->createTextNode($childText) );
            }
            
            return $result;
        }
        
        public function SetNodeAttributes($node, $nameAndValues){
            if(null != $nameAndValues && sizeof($nameAndValues) > 0){
                foreach($nameAndValues as $name => $value){
                    $this->SetNodeAttribute($node, $name, $value);
                }
            }
        }
        
        public function SetNodeAttribute($node, $name, $value){
            $node->setAttribute($name, $value);
        }
        
        public function SaveXml(){
            return $this->xml->saveXML();
        }
        
        //[...]
        
    }
    
    ?>

This is the Result:

    <!-- ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? -->
    <rootnode>
        <nodelevel1>Text1 - This node one has text</nodelevel1>
        <nodelevel2>Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text
            <nodelevel2_1>Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine</nodelevel2_1>
        </nodelevel2>
        <nodelevel3>
            <nodelevel4>Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)</nodelevel4>
        </nodelevel3>
    </rootnode>

   
But in theory, there should be somethign like that:

    <!-- ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? -->
    <rootnode>
        <nodelevel1>Text1 - This node one has text</nodelevel1>
        <nodelevel2>Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text
            <nodelevel2_1>Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine</nodelevel2_1>
        </nodelevel2>
        <nodelevel3/>
        <nodelevel4>Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)</nodelevel4>
    </rootnode>

   
As you can see: Something went wrong because i had not set a value for the new created Node on Level3!:  

    $l3 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel3", "");
    $l4 = $xmlHandler->AppendNodeWithChild($root, "NodeLevel4", "Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)");

As long as i set attributes or put in value sin the new created node, everything is fine.
But i have some situations where also pure empty nodes have to be created!

    
My questions are:

What am I doing wrong here?
Or does PHP do something wrong?
Maybe my browser does a bad preparation of the XML, but the outgoing XML request was build and send correctly and the mistake lies something else?
If so, how can I check the XML request though?

And if nothing helps: What workaround solutions do you suggest?

 

Greetz

Void-Droid

[Jacques1]

Your output doesn't make any sense at all. The XML declaration is fudged up, the tags are wrong (since they've been changed to all-lowercase), and the output shouldn't even be formatted.

 

Either you haven't provided your real code, or there's something which messes with the XML output.

 

This is the raw output of $xmlHandler->SaveXml() after enabling formatted output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<RootNode>
  <NodeLevel1>Text1 - This node one has text</NodeLevel1>
  <NodeLevel2>Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text<NodeLevel2_1>Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine</NodeLevel2_1></NodeLevel2>
  <NodeLevel3/>
  <NodeLevel4>Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)</NodeLevel4>
</RootNode>

If you get something else, save the return value of $xmlHandler->SaveXml() in a file on your server and inspect that file.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Jacques1

[Void-Droid]

Your output doesn't make any sense at all. The XML declaration is fudged up, the tags are wrong (since they've been changed to all-lowercase), and the output shouldn't even be formatted.

 

Either you haven't provided your real code, or there's something which messes with the XML output.

 

This is the raw output of $xmlHandler->SaveXml() after enabling formatted output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<RootNode>
  <NodeLevel1>Text1 - This node one has text</NodeLevel1>
  <NodeLevel2>Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text<NodeLevel2_1>Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine</NodeLevel2_1></NodeLevel2>
  <NodeLevel3/>
  <NodeLevel4>Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)</NodeLevel4>
</RootNode>

If you get something else, save the return value of $xmlHandler->SaveXml() in a file on your server and inspect that file.

 

 

You, sir, are a true genius!

That was ist!

 

You: the tags are wrong (since they've been changed to all-lowercase)

Me: Yes, it seems the XML gets messy after echoing it out into the browser instead of saving it into a file!

 

You: and the output shouldn't even be formatted

Me: I did that myself for a better view

 

You: This is the raw output of $xmlHandler->SaveXml() after enabling formatted output

Me: After printing it out into a file, i got the same result.

 

 

The conclusion:

 

I wrote the saveXml-output into a file.

This is the output (after formatting it by myself):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<RootNode>
    <NodeLevel1>Text1 - This node one has text</NodeLevel1>
    <NodeLevel2>Text2 - Next node Level3 level is not gonna have text
        <NodeLevel2_1>Text2_1 - This node will be a child of Level2, everything fine</NodeLevel2_1>
    </NodeLevel2>
    <NodeLevel3/>
    <NodeLevel4>Text4 - This node should be on same level like 3, 2 & 1, but instead it's a child of Level 3 (?!?!?!?!)</NodeLevel4>
</RootNode>

So were was the mess?

 

I thoght it would be enough to print the XML out into the browser with echo and check it through the sourcecode.

As you can see in my first post, i used echo with "<p style='display:none;'>" to somehow print out the result of my XML-Creation (because i didn't know how else).

 

Therefore the XML-Creation was a full success from start up and the error i get from the response-Server lies somewhere else (from now on i can not rely on your help anymore)!

Your solution made may day.

 

Thank you very much!