Parsing XML with the PHP XMLReader

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2463338

  •  20-09-2019
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Question

I am writing program that reads in some XML from the $_POST variable and then parses using the PHP XMLReader and the data extracted input into a database. I am using the XMLReader as the XML supplied will more than likely be too big to place into memory.

However I am having some issues, my XML and basic code as are follows:

'<?xml version="1.0"?> <data_root> <data> <info>value</info> </data> <action>value</action> </data_root>'

$request = $_REQUEST['xml'];

$reader = new XMLReader();
$reader->XML($request);

while($reader->read()){
   //processing code
}

$reader->close()

My problem is that the code will work perfectly if the XML being passed does not have the <?xml version="1.0"?> line, but if i include it, and it will be included when the application goes into a live production environment, the $reader->read() code for the while loop does not work and the XML is not parsed within the while loop.

Has anyone seen similar behaviour before or knows why this could be happening?

Thanks in advance.

Was it helpful?

Solution 4

ok, major redfaced coder here, having made some changes to my dev environment, i installed a new version of php yesterday, and magic_quotes_gpc was set to 'on' thus escaping the quotes in the XML and causing the problem

thank you for your assistance

OTHER TIPS

What do you mean with: "does not work"? Are you getting any errors?

[edit] ...

I can reproduce your problem either, I tried the exact same thing as VolkerK:

$r = new XMLReader();
$x = '<?xml version="1.0"?> <data_root>  <data>  <info>value</info>  </data> <action>value</action> </data_root>';
$r->XML($x);
while ($r->read()) { echo $r->nodeType . " - "; }

which produces: 1 - 14 - 1 - 14 - 1 - 3 - 15 - 14 - 15 - 14 - 1 - 3 - 15 - 14 - 15 -

I used: PHP 5.3.2-0.dotdeb.1 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Mar 9 2010 10:14:53)

I cannot reproduce the behavior (using php 5.3.2/win32 + firefox as the client for the second example).

$request = '<?xml version="1.0"?> <data_root>  <data>  <info>value</info>  </data>  <action>value</action> </data_root>';
$reader = new XMLReader();
$reader->XML($request);
while($reader->read()){
  echo $reader->nodeType, " ";
}
$reader->close();

prints 1 14 1 14 1 3 15 14 15 14 1 3 15 14 15.
Does $_REQUEST['xml'] really contain what you expect it to?

edit: Or another example that actually uses _REQUEST

<?php
if ( isset($_REQUEST['xml']) ) {
  $request = $_REQUEST['xml'];
  $reader = new XMLReader();
  $reader->XML($request);
  while($reader->read()){
    echo $reader->nodeType, " ";
  }
  $reader->close();
  die;
}
$pre = htmlspecialchars(
'<?xml version="1.0"?>
  <data_root>
    <data> 
      <info>value</info>
    </data> 
  <action>value</action>
</data_root>');
?>
<html><head><title>....</title></head><body>
  <form method="post" action="?">
    <div>
      <textarea cols="25" rows="8" name="xml"><?php echo $pre; ?></textarea>
      <br />
      <input type="submit" />
    </div>
  </form>
</body></html>

again 1 14 1 14 1 3 15 14 15 14 1 3 15 14 15 is printed when the form is submitted.

You'll need to confirm a few things:

  1. That your column type within your database is large enough to hold the xml, if it is not it will only store part of it, resulting in a non valid xml 'document' and causing the XML parser to fail.
  2. Check you php.ini folder to make sure that your post_max_size, max_upload_filesize, and memory_limit values are large enough, if they are not, the same issue arrises, php cannot parse it because it is an invalid 'document'

Also, you should probably be using $_POST to retrieve that data, just a better practice.

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