- XML Reference Guide
- Overview
- What Is XML?
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Table of Contents
- The Document Object Model
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- DOM and Java
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Implementations
- DOM and JavaScript
- Using a Repeater
- Repeaters and XML
- Repeater Resources
- DOM and .NET
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Documentation and Downloads
- DOM and C++
- DOM and C++ Resources
- DOM and Perl
- DOM and Perl Resources
- DOM and PHP
- DOM and PHP Resources
- DOM Level 3
- DOM Level 3 Core
- DOM Level 3 Load and Save
- DOM Level 3 XPath
- DOM Level 3 Validation
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Documentation and Implementations
- The Simple API for XML (SAX)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- SAX and Java
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- SAX and .NET
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- SAX and Perl
- SAX and Perl Resources
- SAX and PHP
- SAX and PHP Resources
- Validation
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XML Schemas
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- RELAX NG
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Schematron
- Official Documentation and Implementations
- Validation in Applications
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- XSL Transformations (XSLT)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XSLT in Java
- Java in XSLT Resources
- XSLT and RSS in .NET
- XSLT and RSS in .NET Resources
- XSL-FO
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XPath
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XML Base
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Official Documentation
- XHTML
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XHTML 2.0
- Documentation
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XUL
- XUL References
- XML Events
- XML Events Resources
- XML Data Binding
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Specifications
- Implementations
- XML and Databases
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Online Resources
- Official Documentation
- SQL Server and FOR XML
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Documentation and Implementations
- Service Oriented Architecture
- Web Services
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Creating a Perl Web Service Client
- SOAP::Lite
- Amazon Web Services
- Creating the Movable Type Plug-in
- Perl, Amazon, and Movable Type Resources
- Apache Axis2
- REST
- REST Resources
- SOAP
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- SOAP and Java
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- WSDL
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- UDDI
- UDDI Resources
- XML-RPC
- XML-RPC in PHP
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Ajax
- Asynchronous Javascript
- Client-side XSLT
- SAJAX and PHP
- Ajax Resources
- JSON
- Ruby on Rails
- Creating Objects
- Ruby Basics: Arrays and Other Sundry Bits
- Ruby Basics: Iterators and Persistence
- Starting on the Rails
- Rails and Databases
- Rails: Ajax and Partials
- Rails Resources
- Web Services Security
- Web Services Security Resources
- SAML
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Specification and Implementation
- XML Digital Signatures
- XML Digital Signatures Resources
- XML Key Management Services
- Resources for XML Key Management Services
- Internationalization
- Resources
- Grid Computing
- Grid Resources
- Web Services Resource Framework
- Web Services Resource Framework Resources
- WS-Addressing
- WS-Addressing Resources
- WS-Notifications
- New Languages: XML in Use
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Google Web Toolkit
- GWT Basic Interactivity
- Google Sitemaps
- Google Sitemaps Resources
- Accessibility
- Web Accessibility
- XML Accessibility
- Accessibility Resources
- The Semantic Web
- Defining a New Ontology
- OWL: Web Ontology Language
- Semantic Web Resources
- Google Base
- Microformats
- StructuredBlogging
- Live Clipboard
- WML
- XHTML-MP
- WML Resources
- Google Web Services
- Google Web Services API
- Google Web Services Resources
- The Yahoo! Web Services Interface
- Yahoo! Web Services and PHP
- Yahoo! Web Services Resources
- eBay REST API
- WordML
- WordML Part 2: Lists
- WordML Part 3: Tables
- WordML Resources
- DocBook
- Articles
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation and Implementations
- XML Query
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XForms
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Resource Description Framework (RDF)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Topic Maps
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation, Implementations, and Other Resources
- Rich Site Summary (RSS)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE)
- Atom
- Podcasting
- Podcasting Resources
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- OPML
- OPML Resources
- Summary
- Projects
- JavaScript TimeTracker: JSON and PHP
- The Javascript Timetracker
- Refactoring to Javascript Objects
- Creating the Yahoo! Widget
- Web Mashup
- Google Maps
- Indeed Mashup
- Mashup Part 3: Putting It All Together
- Additional Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions About XML
- What's XML, and why should I use it?
- What's a well-formed document?
- What's the difference between XML and HTML?
- What's the difference between HTML and XHTML?
- Can I use XML in a browser?
- Should I use elements or attributes for my document?
- What's a namespace?
- Where can I get an XML parser?
- What's the difference between a well-formed document and a valid document?
- What's a validating parser?
- Should I use DOM or SAX for my application?
- How can I stop a SAX parser before it has parsed the entire document?
- 2005 Predictions
- 2006 Predictions
- Nick's Book Picks
PHP has support for XML built in, but as far as production code, it's limited to SAX. You can install the DomDocument module, but you do, of course, have to have access to the actual server in order to use it. Fortunately, for those of you who, like me, use an external web server and don't have that kind of control, there's a simple way to get DOM functionality. The DOMIT! XML Parser for PHP.
As of version 2.0, the Document Object Model defines the ways and means of manipulating a Document
object and the objects contained by it, but doesn't define any way to create, load, or save (or persist, serialize, or whatever other verb you'd like to use) a Document
. In this section, we'll get a feel for how these manipulations work by loading a simple document, making some changes to it, and then using DOMIT's utilities to save it.
Consider, for example, the following sample file, candy.xml
:
<xml version="1.0"?> <candy> <product>Mints</product> <product>Chocolate</product> <product>Circus Peanuts</product> </candy>
Using DOMIT!, we can create a new Document
object that represents the data in that file by including the code and referencing it:
<html> <head><title>PHP DOM Manipulations</title></head> <body> <?php require_once('domit\xml_domit_include.php'); $doc =& new DOMIT_Document(); $success= $doc->loadXML("candy.xml"); ?> </body> </html>
DOMIT! also enables you to load XML from a string, as in:
$docString = "<xml version=\"1.0\"?> <candy> <product>Mints</product> <product>Chocolate</product> <product>Circus Peanuts</product> </candy>"; $success = $doc->parseXML($docString, true);
Remember, this capability is not part of the DOM Recommendation, and is up to the specific implementation. Manipulating the Document object, on the other hand, is part of the recommendation:
<html> <head><title>PHP DOM Manipulations</title></head> <body> <?php require_once('domit\xml_domit_include.php'); $doc =& new DOMIT_Document(); $success= $doc->loadXML("candy.xml"); $root =& $doc->documentElement; echo("The root element is " . $root->nodeName . ".<br />"); $children =& $root->childNodes; echo("There are " . count($children) . " child elements. <br />"); echo("They are: <br />"); for ($child =& $root->firstChild; $child; $child =& $child->nextSibling){ if ($child->nodeType == DOMIT_TEXT_NODE) { echo("Text: " ); echo( $child->nodeValue ); echo( "<br />"); } else if ($child->nodeType == DOMIT_ELEMENT_NODE) { echo($child->nodeName . " = " . $child->firstChild->nodeValue . "<br />"); } } ?> </body> </html>
To start with, we get a reference to the root element of the document, also called the document element.
That element is a node, but because it's also an element it has a name, which we can retrieve using the nodeName
property.
Next, we can get all of the child nodes of the root element using the childNodes
property, which returns a nodelist that includes both the candy
elements and the text
nodes in between them. We can iterate through that list much as we would iterate through any other
list, using properties such as nextSibling
. Each node has a type, which you can test
against constants such as DOMIT_TEXT_NODE
and DOMIT_ELEMENT_NODE
to determine what it is. That information can be important. For example, an element node has a name, so you
can use the nodeName
property, but not a value, so you can't use the nodeValue
property. The situation is reversed for a Text
node.
Note that the text "content" of an element is also the first child of that element, as you can see when
we retrieve the text contained within each candy
element using first firstChild
and then nodeValue
.
DOM also defines the ways in which you can add content to a document:
... } else if ($child->nodeType == DOMIT_ELEMENT_NODE) { echo($child->nodeName . " = " . $child->firstChild->nodeValue . "<br />"); } } $products =& new DOMIT_NodeList(); $doc->documentElement->getNamedElements($products, "*"); for ($productNum = 0; $productNum < $products->getLength(); $productNum = $productNum + 1){ $productElement =& $products->item($productNum); $productElement->setAttributeNode($doc->createAttribute("productNumber")); $productElement->setAttribute("productNumber", ("Product "+$productNum)); $productName = $productElement->firstChild->nodeValue; $productElement->firstChild->nodeValue = strtoupper($productName); $updateElement =& $doc->createElement("updated"); $rightNow = getDate(); $updateText =& $doc->createTextNode($rightNow[0]); $updateElement->appendChild($updateText); $productElement->appendChild($updateElement); } ?> </body> </html>
Here we are creating a NodeList
by selecting all of the product
elements.
For each one, we can create and populate an attribute, and then get and set the value of it's text child.
As far as creating a new node, that's a job for the Document
object, which carries
methods such as createElement()
and createTextNode()
. Once you create and
populate these nodes, you can append them to a particular element.
Saving the Document
out to a file is another area that was left for DOM version 3.0,
but fortunately, DOMIT! includes a saveXML()
method:
... $updateElement->appendChild($updateText); $productElement->appendChild($updateElement); } $doc->saveXML("newcandy.xml", false); ?> </body> </html>