PHP - using XPATH to reference XML element with 2 attributes

Question

I am using XPATH (with PHP) to retrieve XML data based on the XML attributes. The XML structure is like this:

<products>
<product category="Desktop">
<name> Dell Desktop (d)</name>
<price>499.99</price>
<shipping cost="10.99" carrier="UPS" />
</product>
</products>

This code works fine, as it tests the XML element <product> which only has ONE attribute - named "category".

$productVar = "Desktop";
$x_path = $XMLproducts->xpath("/products/product[@category='$productVar']");
foreach($x_path as $Product) {
echo $Product->name . " - " . $Product->price . "<br>";
}

But the next two foreach loops are NOT displaying anything. They test the XML element <shipping> which has TWO attributes - "cost" and "carrier".

$shippingCarrier = "UPS";
$xpath = $XMLproducts->xpath("/products/shipping[@carrier='$shippingCarrier']");
foreach($xpath as $Product) {
echo $Product->name . " - " . $Product->price . "<br>";
}

$shippingCost = "UPS";
$xpath = $XMLproducts->xpath("/products/shipping[@cost='$shippingCost']");
foreach($xpath as $Product) {
echo $Product->name . " - " . $Product->price . "<br>";
}

Any advice? Thanks!

Answer 1

In your xpath-expressions, you need to select <product> and keep the condition in []:

/products/product[shipping/@carrier='$shippingCarrier']

and...

/products/product[shipping/@cost='$shippingCost']

Moreover, you need to set your $shippingCostto "10.99" instead of "UPS" to select data.

see it working: https://eval.in/128925

Answer 2

You should use

/products/product/shipping[@carrier='$shippingCarrier']

because shipping is not a direct child of products.

You could also look for all descendants like this:

/products//shipping[@carrier='$shippingCarrier']