In this post, we will look at how we can make an XML document using PHP.
First, what is XML?
XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language. It is a markup language much like HTML but it is important to note that XML does not have a predefined set of tags unlike HTML. You define your own set of tags in an XML document and these tags should be self-descriptive. XML is a W3C recommended standard.
The following is an
example of an XML document.
<freelancer>
<codename>pinoywebdev</codename>
<skillset>php, mysql, html, css, javascript, ajax, photoshop</skillset>
<hourlyrate>15 USD</hourlyrate>
</freelancer>
As defined, XML tags should be self-descriptive. From the example, you can really say what each tag means.
<freelancer> </freelancer> is our parent container tag telling us about a freelancer. The inner tags:
codename, skillset, and
hourlyrate clearly tell us what the data they contain.
Websites are making use of XML document to store data which they actually supply as data feeds for other client sites to use. The source website updates their feeds (xml documents) and client websites take, parse these documents and display the data. Hence, we can say that XML is a way to store data for its consumers' use.
How to make an XML using php?XML is nothing special but a plain text file. That said, you can generate an XML document just how you generate any plain text document.
Here's how you create a text file using php:
$filename = "mytextfile.txt";
$fh = fopen($filename,"w");
$data_to_write = "php xml example by pinoywebdev";
fwrite($fh, $data_to_write);
fclose($fh);
This code will give us, mytextfile.txt containing: "
php xml example by pinoywebdev"
You are going to use the same php script PLUS a few edits to produce an XML document. Edits you need make are:
1. Give
$data_to_write a value that is xml-formatted and
2. Make the file extension appropriate. Use .xml instead of .txt
Let's use our XML example above and so we have:
$filename = "mytextfile.xml";
$fh = fopen($filename,"w");
$data_to_write = "<freelancer>\r\n";
$data_to_write .= "<codename>pinoywebdev</codename>\r\n";
$data_to_write .= "<skillset>php, mysql, html, css, javascript, css, photoshop</skillset>\r\n";
$data_to_write .= "<hourlyrate>15 USD</hourlyrate>\r\n";
$data_to_write .= "</freelancer>\r\n";
fwrite($fh, $data_to_write);
fclose($fh);
I've used string concatenation method for
$data_to_write just to make it more pleasing and easy to read. That, somehow, is coder's approach. That's my approach and does not really matter if you do it differently. Also, I added
\r\n at the end of each line. This is so that, when I open my xml document using notepad for example, the contents show up line after line and not all in one line.
There you have your
xml file!
