Using PHP for parsing XML documents

Any person who has already worked in the document object model won't find it difficult to work in PHP to parse the XML documents. The document object model is used in PHP too.

Create a DOM object and then load the XML file into it. Use commands like, new DomDocument() and load("XML_file.xml") to do this. Once you have loaded the XML file into the document object, you can navigate through the elements of the XML file by using commands like getElementsByTagName or by using XPath queries.

Whatever way you use to get the elements, you get an array of the element that you have queried. You have to use foreach loops to loop through the elements in the array and print them out.

If you are well versed with XPath then the options of working with the XML document is very high and also easy. Different options like selecting the first element of any element in any position can be selected with ease.

You can also select elements based on a particular attribute or an element irrespective of the path in which it is present. A good knowledge on XPath is sure to help you when you program with PHP and XML.