PHP Simple XML to get Nodes based on their attribute

Question

I have created an XML file that has a structured list of franchises. Problem is that I want to grab a franchise by it's id without having to iterate throughout the whole list.

This is how I can get the attributes of the first franchise. But I want to fetch back a franchise object with an id of say '3'. I would of thought that the id would be the key but it isn't, see below:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1
            [name] => Franchise 1
            [aid] => 
        )

)

Here is how I access the first franchises attributes, but this isn't very helpful to me.

$this->xmlData->franchises->franchise->attributes()

Here is the structure of the xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data>
    <franchises>
        <franchise id="1" name="Franchise 1" >
            <header>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </header>
            <used-list>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </used-list>
            <used-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </used-detail>
            <contact-us>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </contact-us>
            <new-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </new-detail>
            <left-column>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </left-column>
            <new-list>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </new-list>
            <offer-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </offer-detail>
            <popup>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </popup>
        </franchise>
        <franchise id="2" name="Franchise 2" >
            <header>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </header>
            <used-list>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </used-list>
            <used-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </used-detail>
            <contact-us>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </contact-us>
            <new-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </new-detail>
            <left-column>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </left-column>
            <new-list>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </new-list>
            <offer-detail>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </offer-detail>
            <popup>
                <accountId>2354435435</accountId>
            </popup>
        </franchise>
    </franchises>
</data>

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Look at xpath. You can retrieve a specific node by attribute like this :

$result = $xml->xpath("//franchises/franchise[@id='2']");