How do I convert the following XML data into an array (JSON or otherwise)

Question 1

Given that I couldn't solve the issue with any of the solutions I kept digging and did some tests. My solution is not pretty but is certainly functional. I removed all the XML data and left myself with fairly raw JSON. The issue, in this case, with the JSON data is that the strings are not wrapped in "" so I did an str_replace to fix this and it all worked. $content= str_replace('','',str_replace("\'","'",$content)));

$keys = array("title_id:",
"track_id:",
"artist:",
"title:",
"title_url:",
"track_url:",
"label:",
"genre:",
"genre_url:",
"catnumber:",
"promo:",
"duration:",
"r_date:",
"price:",
"hbr:",
"wav:",
"bought:",
"false",
"image:",
"thumb:",
"mp3:",
"waveform:",
"bpm:",
"keysig:"
);
$newkeys = array("\"title_id\":",
"\"track_id\":",
"\"artist\":",
"\"title\":",
"\"title_url\":",
"\"track_url\":",
"\"label\":",
"\"genre\":",
"\"genre_url\":",
"\"catnumber\":",
"\"promo\":",
"\"duration\":",
"\"r_date\":",
"\"price\":",
"\"hbr\":",
"\"wav\":",
"\"bought\":",
"\"false\"",
"\"image\":",
"\"thumb\":",
"\"mp3\":",
"\"waveform\":",
"\"bpm\":",
"\"keysig\":"
);
$content=  str_replace($keys, $newkeys, $content);
$json = json_decode($content, true);

I was then able to loop through this and process normally.

Question 2

Don't. Just use Xpath on the DOM to fetch the parts, in your case the JSON structure in the CDATA section.

The structure is not really JSON but Javascript, the quotes around the property names are missing. Here is a nice regex in a user comment of the PHP Manual that repairs it.

$xml = <<<'XML'
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-15"?><root><data><![CDATA[ [{title_id: "284270",
          track_id: "1548617",
          artist: [[20670, 1, "Matthias Vogt", "matthias-vogt"]],
          title: "The Wobble Track",
          title_url: "/title/284270/the-wobble-track",
          track_url: "/track/1548617/the-wobble-track",
          label: [88, "Large Music", "large-music"],
          genre: "Deep House",
          genre_url: "/genre/13/deep-house",
          catnumber: "LAR181",
          promo: false,
          duration: "5:54",
          r_date: "2014-02-17",
          price: {hbr: 1.99, wav: 2.74},
          bought: false,
          image: "http://static.traxsource.com/files/images/271306_large.jpg",
          thumb: "http://static.traxsource.com/scripts/image.php/44x44/271306.jpg",
          mp3: "http://preview.traxsource.com/files/previews/88/1324290-p.mp3",
          waveform: "http://static.traxsource.com/files/wf/1324290-wf.png",
          bpm: "120",
          keysig: "Bmin"}
] ]]></data></root>
XML;

function javascript_decode($json, $assoc = FALSE){
  $json = str_replace(array("\n","\r"),"",$json);
  $json = preg_replace('(([{,]+)(\s*)([^"]+?)\s*:)','$1"$3":',$json);
  return json_decode($json,$assoc);
} 

$dom = new DOMDocument();
//$dom->load($xmlFile);
$dom->loadXml($xml);
$xpath = new DOMXpath($dom);

$json = javascript_decode($xpath->evaluate('string(/root/data)'));
var_dump($json);

Output https://eval.in/105256

array(1) {
  [0]=>
  object(stdClass)#3 (21) {
    ["title_id"]=>
    string(6) "284270"
    ["track_id"]=>
    string(7) "1548617"
    ["artist"]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      array(4) {
        [0]=>
        int(20670)
        [1]=>
        int(1)
        [2]=>
        string(13) "Matthias Vogt"
        [3]=>
        string(13) "matthias-vogt"
      }
    }
    ["title"]=>
    string(16) "The Wobble Track"
    ["title_url"]=>
    string(30) "/title/284270/the-wobble-track"
    ["track_url"]=>
    string(31) "/track/1548617/the-wobble-track"
    ["label"]=>
    array(3) {
      [0]=>
      int(88)
      [1]=>
      string(11) "Large Music"
      [2]=>
      string(11) "large-music"
    }
    ["genre"]=>
    string(10) "Deep House"
    ["genre_url"]=>
    string(20) "/genre/13/deep-house"
    ["catnumber"]=>
    string(6) "LAR181"
    ["promo"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["duration"]=>
    string(4) "5:54"
    ["r_date"]=>
    string(10) "2014-02-17"
    ["price"]=>
    object(stdClass)#4 (2) {
      ["hbr"]=>
      float(1.99)
      ["wav"]=>
      float(2.74)
    }
    ["bought"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["image"]=>
    string(58) "http://static.traxsource.com/files/images/271306_large.jpg"
    ["thumb"]=>
    string(63) "http://static.traxsource.com/scripts/image.php/44x44/271306.jpg"
    ["mp3"]=>
    string(61) "http://preview.traxsource.com/files/previews/88/1324290-p.mp3"
    ["waveform"]=>
    string(52) "http://static.traxsource.com/files/wf/1324290-wf.png"
    ["bpm"]=>
    string(3) "120"
    ["keysig"]=>
    string(4) "Bmin"
  }
}