getting string from simplexmlobject without xpath

Question

I'm going crazy here... again!!

I have this simplexml file:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
 [PubmedArticle] => Array
 (
 [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
 (
 [MedlineCitation] => SimpleXMLElement Object
 (
 [@attributes] => Array
 (
 [Owner] => NLM
 [Status] => In-Process
 )
 [PMID] => 20538400
 [DateCreated] => SimpleXMLElement Object
 (
 [Year] => 2010
 [Month] => 07
 [Day] => 08
 )
 [Article] => SimpleXMLElement Object
 (
 [@attributes] => Array
 (
 [PubModel] => Print-Electronic
 )
etc.....

I want to have the "DateCreated" in this particular way: 2010年07月08日 The following code works...:

foreach ($xml->xpath('//MedlineCitation') as $MedlineCitation)
{
 foreach ($MedlineCitation->DateCreated as $date)
 {
 foreach ($date as $ymd)
 {
 $datecreated .= $ymd . "-"; 
 }
 $datecreated = substr($datecreated, 0, -1);
 echo $datecreated;
 $datecreated = "";
 }
}

output: 2010年07月08日 But... i want it without xpath, because i need to have another peace of code in this "foreach loop" that doesn't work with xpath...

This code doesn't doesn't work....:

foreach ($xml->PubmedArticle as $MedlineCitation)
{
 foreach ($MedlineCitation->DateCreated as $date)
 {
 foreach ($date as $ymd)
 {
 $datecreated .= $ymd . "-"; 
 }
 $datecreated = substr($datecreated, 0, -1);
 echo $datecreated;
 $datecreated = "";
 }
} 

And this also doesn't wok...:

foreach ($xml->PubmedArticle as $MedlineCitation)
 {
 $datecreated = "";
 $datecreated = $MedlineCitation->DateCreated->Year;
 $datecreated = $datecreated . "-" . $MedlineCitation->DateCreated->Month;
 $datecreated = $datecreated . "-" . $MedlineCitation->DateCreated->Day;
 echo $datecreated;
 }

Best regards! Thijs

Answer 1

It looks like you're just getting a little confused over how the XML structure is accessed in SimpleXML. To get your dates, you could loop over each MedlineCitation within each PubmedArticle like:

// Loop over each <PubmedArticle>
foreach ($xml->PubmedArticle as $article)
{
 // Loop over each <MedlineCitation> within this <PubmedArticle>
 foreach ($article->MedlineCitation as $citation) {
 // Get formatted created date
 $date_created = sprintf(
 "%04d-%02d-%02d",
 $citation->DateCreated->Year,
 $citation->DateCreated->Month,
 $citation->DateCreated->Day
 );
 echo $date_created . PHP_EOL;
 }
}

If there is only ever one MedlineCitation within a PubmedArticle then the inner loop is unnecessary and you could do:

// Loop over each <PubmedArticle>
foreach ($xml->PubmedArticle as $article)
{
 // Use the <MedlineCitation> within this <PubmedArticle>
 $citation = $article->MedlineCitation;
 // Get formatted created date
 $date_created = sprintf(
 "%04d-%02d-%02d",
 $citation->DateCreated->Year,
 $citation->DateCreated->Month,
 $citation->DateCreated->Day
 );
 echo $date_created . PHP_EOL;
}

• Thijs: THANKS!! this is the solution! I missed one level in the structure!

Answer 2

Assume that you have loaded xml file content into $xml then try this snippet

//

$yy = $xml->DateCreated->Year; $mm = $xml->DateCreated->Month; $dd = $xml->DateCreated->Day;

$datecreated = $yy.'-'.$mm.'-'.$dd; // yyyy-mm-dd

echo $datecreated;

// Hope this help!

• Thijs: It works when i use the whole path in the foreach loop... so it looks likes the $MedlineCitation doesn't fill...? in the: "foreach ($xml->PubmedArticle as $MedlineCitation)" loop...?