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up vote 1 down vote favorite

I am pulling in an XML feed from a blogger blog and need to parse it using PHP. The data looks something like this, once I have used the simplexml_load_file() function:

["entry"]=> array(25) {["link"]=> array(5) {[4]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#571 (1) {["@attributes"]=> array(4) {["rel"]=> string(9) "alternate"

When I try to target rel like so:

echo $xmldata[0]->entry[0]->link[4]->@attributes['rel'];

and

echo $xmldata[0]->entry[0]->link[4]->[@attributes]->rel;

I get the following errors:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '@', expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or '{' or '$'

and

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[', expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or '{' or '$'

respectively.

Any ideas?

share|improve this question
    
probably you need quotes echo $xmldata[0]->entry[0]->link[4]->["@attributes"]->rel; –  danneth Aug 15 at 12:41

3 Answers 3

up vote 2 down vote

You need to wrap @attributes in curly braces and in '' quotes.

echo $xmldata[0]->entry[0]->link[4]->{'@attributes'}['rel']
share|improve this answer
    
+1, I forgot the single quote. –  Ende Neu Aug 15 at 12:52
up vote 2 down vote

Try like this:

echo $xmldata[0]->entry[0]->link[4]['rel'];

The Basic SimpleXML usage documentation (example #5) shows how an element's attributes can be accessed just like an associative array as in the above.

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Why the downvote? –  Robby Cornelissen Aug 15 at 12:46
up vote 0 down vote

Since @ is a keyword you need to wrap the identifier into curly brackets:

echo $xmldata[0]
  ->entry[0]
  ->link[4]
  ->{'@attributes'}['rel'];
share|improve this answer
    
I'm sorry, I'm a little bit confused here. Could you briefly explain why my answer is considered inferior or not useful? Trying to learn... –  Robby Cornelissen Aug 15 at 12:55
    
Well you should ask the downvoter, anyway, I suppose it's wrong because at link[4] there's an object, this object has a property called @attributes which is an array that contains rel, the problem is that being @ a keyword you can't access it so ->@attributes, for this you need to have brackets and single quotes around the identifier. Your answer bypass the @attributes identifier, also if there was a property called rel you would have used link[4]->rel since at link[4] there's an object. –  Ende Neu Aug 15 at 12:59
    
OK. Thanks for answering. According to the Basic SimpleXML documentation and my own tests, index-based access works fine for attributes though. –  Robby Cornelissen Aug 15 at 13:02
    
Interesting, I didn't know that, although there's no xml example with attributes in the documentation, at least I don't see it. –  Ende Neu Aug 15 at 13:07
    
Example #5 Using attributes –  Robby Cornelissen Aug 15 at 13:07

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