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XIX. DOM XML functions

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These functions are only available if PHP was configured with --with-dom=[DIR], using the GNOME xml library. You will need at least libxml-2.2.7 These functions have been added in PHP 4.

The extension allows to operate on an XML document with the DOM api. It also provides a function xmltree() to turn the complete XML document into a tree of php objects. Currently this tree is read only, which doesn't mean you cannot modify it, but it would not make any sense since dumpmem() cannot be applied to it. Therefore, if you want to read an XML file and write a modified version use the add_node(), set_attribute(), etc. and finaly dumpmem() functions.

This module defines the following constants:

Table 1. XML constants

ConstantValueDescription
XML_ELEMENT_NODE1Node is an element
XML_ATTRIBUTE_NODE2Node is an attribute
XML_TEXT_NODE3Node is a piece of text
XML_CDATA_SECTION_NODE4 
XML_ENTITY_REF_NODE5 
XML_ENTITY_NODE6Node is an entity like  
XML_PI_NODE7Node is a processing instruction
XML_COMMENT_NODE8Node is a comment
XML_DOCUMENT_NODE9Node is a document
XML_DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE10 
XML_DOCUMENT_FRAG_NODE11 
XML_NOTATION_NODE12 
XML_GLOBAL_NAMESPACE1 
XML_LOCAL_NAMESPACE2 

Each function in this extension can be used in two ways. In a none object oriented way by passing the object to apply the function to as a first argument or in an object oriented way by calling the function as a method of an object. This documentation describes the none object oriented functions, though you get the object methods by skipping the prefix "domxml_". The following table will list all classes, its attributes and methods.

This module defines a number of classes, which are listed — including their properties and method — in the following table.

Table 2. DomDocument class (methods)

Method nameFunction nameDescription
rootdomxml_root() 
childrendomxml_children() 
add_rootdomxml_add_root() 
dtddomxml_intdtd() 
dumpmemdomxml() 
xpath_initxpath_init 
xpath_new_contextxpath_new_context 
xptr_new_contextxptr_new_context 

Table 3. DomDocument class (attributes)

NameTypeDescription
docclass DomDocumentThe object itself
namestring 
urlstring 
versionstringVersion of XML
encodingstring 
standalonelong1 if the file is a standalone version
typelongOne of the constants in table ...
compressionlong1 if the file is compressed
charsetlong 

Table 4. DomNode class (methods)

NamePHP nameDescription
lastchilddomxml_last_child() 
childrendomxml_children() 
parentdomxml_parent() 
new_childdomxml_new_child() 
get_attributedomxml_get_attribute() 
set_attributedomxml_set_attribute() 
attributesdomxml_attributes() 
nodedomxml_node() 
set_content()domxml_set_content 

Table 5. DomNode class (attributes)

NameTypeDescription
nodeclass DomNodeThe object itself
typelong 
namestring 
contentstring 

Table of Contents
xmldoc — Creates a DOM object of an XML document
xmldocfile — Creates a DOM object from XML file
xmltree — Creates a tree of php objects from XML document
domxml_root — Returns root element node
domxml_add_root — Adds a further root node
domxml_dumpmem — Dumps the internal XML tree back into a string
domxml_attributes — Returns an array of attributes of a node
domxml_get_attribute — Returns a certain attribute of a node
domxml_set_attribute —
domxml_children — Returns children of a node or document
domxml_new_child — Adds new child node
domxml_new_xmldoc — Creates new empty XML document
xpath_new_context — Creates new xpath context
xpath_eval — Evaluates an xpath expression
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