simplexml: how to get NUMERIC array key

infekt posted this at 20:05 — 25th January 2010.

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Jan 2010

Hello,

I am using simplexml and cannot find what I think would be a simple solution.

How do I get the numeric array key for each <item>?

Please see the simple example below....

My xml:

<data>
  <artist>Chris Navarro</artist>
  <type>Sculpture</type>
  <gallery>
    <name>General</name>
    <item>
       <title>A Mother's Love</title>
       <img>a_mothers_love.jpg</img>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Duality of the Bull and Bear</title>
      <img>duality_of_the_bull_and_bear.jpg</img>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Effort And Desire</title>
      <img>effort_and_desire.jpg</img>
    </item>
  </gallery>
</data>

Then printing out my simplexml object, with:

print_r($xml->gallery[0]->children());

Which outputs:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [name] => General
    [item] => Array
        (
            [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [title] => A Mother's Love
                    [img] => a_mothers_love.jpg
                )
            [1] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [title] => Duality of the Bull and Bear
                    [img] => duality_of_the_bull_and_bear.jpg
                        )
                )
            [2] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [title] => Effort And Desire
                    [img] => effort_and_desire.jpg
                )
        )
)

Then when I loop through with:

foreach($xml->gallery[0]->item as $key=>$item){
  echo $key.': '.$item.'<br />';
}

Outputs the following:
item: A Mother's Love
item: Duality of the Bull and Bear
item: Effort And Desire

But what I'm looking for is the numeric array keys, like:
0: A Mother's Love
1: Duality of the Bull and Bear
2: Effort And Desire

Please help, thanks in advance.

pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 02:55 — 26th January 2010.

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Long story short, I found that this works:

$items = array();
foreach($xml->gallery[0]->item as $key=>$item)
{
     $items[] = (string)$item->title;
}

var_dump($items);

But ya, dealing with a nest of objects and arrays are annoying, which is why I particularly find dealing with SimpleXMLElement frustrating at times.

Perfect example, when I take your example and var_dump($xml->gallery[0]); I get:

object(SimpleXMLElement)#8 (2) {
  ["name"]=>
  string(7) "General"
  ["item"]=>
  array(3) {
    [0]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#6 (2) {
      ["title"]=>
      string(15) "A Mother's Love"
      ["img"]=>
      string(18) "a_mothers_love.jpg"
    }
    [1]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#7 (2) {
      ["title"]=>
      string(28) "Duality of the Bull and Bear"
      ["img"]=>
      string(32) "duality_of_the_bull_and_bear.jpg"
    }
    [2]=>
    object(SimpleXMLElement)#9 (2) {
      ["title"]=>
      string(17) "Effort And Desire"
      ["img"]=>
      string(21) "effort_and_desire.jpg"
    }
  }
}

So, one would think that if I var_dump($xml->gallery[0]->item); I would get the item array, but I get this:

object(SimpleXMLElement)#6 (2) {
  ["title"]=>
  string(15) "A Mother's Love"
  ["img"]=>
  string(18) "a_mothers_love.jpg"
}

So based on that, I figured that looping through the object and build the array manually works the best.

infekt posted this at 00:06 — 27th January 2010.

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Jan 2010

Exactly! So frustrating. Seems odd that I can pass a key like this:

$xml->gallery[0]->item[1];

...and it will give me that exact object from the [item][1] array of objects, but there is no way to pull that key?

Thanks for the reply pr0gr4mm3r!