reading a remote xml file into a variable

bdee1 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-20-05, 11:02 AM

i am trying to write a php script which will eventually get the xml response from the amazon api and parse the xml to pull out data.

i am very new to php so i am doing this in baby steps. right now i am trying to just get the xml response from amazon and store it in a variable.

for some reason instead of an xml reponse being stored in my variable, i am just gettign all the text from the xml all squished into a single text string (no xml tags).

here is my code:

PHP Code:


			
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

<title>Amazon Test</title>

</head>



<body>

<?php

    if (! empty($_POST['searchTerms']))

    {

        print "Search Terms: ".$_POST['searchTerms']."<br>";

        $requestAddress = "http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService&SubscriptionId=myAmazonIDHere&Operation=ItemSearch&Keywords=";

        $requestAddress .= $_POST['searchTerms'];

        $requestAddress .= "&SearchIndex=DVD&ResponseGroup=Request,Images,SalesRank,Medium";



    $xml_str = file_get_contents($requestAddress,0);

    print "<br />$xml_str<br />";

}

?>



<p><strong>Search For a Movie</strong></p>

<form name="form1" method="post" action="<?php print $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>">

Keywords:<input type="text" name="searchTerms" size="40" />

<input type="submit" value="     Search     " />

</form>

so as you can see, first i define the request URL. then i use file_get_contents() to read the amazon response into the $xml_str variable. then i print the $xml_str variable to the screen.

i would expect it to display the following:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <ItemSearchResponse xmlns="http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2005-10-05">
    <OperationRequest>
      <HTTPHeaders>
        <Header Name="UserAgent" Value="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50215; Avalon 6.0.5070; WinFX RunTime 3.0.50215)">
        </Header>
      </HTTPHeaders>
      <RequestId>0QBHYZV64PC18X8FT75N</RequestId>
      <Arguments>
        <Argument Name="SubscriptionId" Value="mySubscriptionID"></Argument>
        <Argument Name="Keywords" Value="monsters"></Argument>
        <Argument Name="ResponseGroup" Value="Request,Images,SalesRank,Medium"></Argument>
        <Argument Name="Operation" Value="ItemSearch"></Argument>
        <Argument Name="Service" Value="AWSECommerceService"></Argument>
        <Argument Name="SearchIndex" Value="DVD"></Argument>

...

but instead it displays:

Code:

1TAASZB89N1YBBJRJ0N20.275962829589844TruemonstersSalesRankRequestMediumImagesDVD13114B00005JKDRhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=ws%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B00005JKDR%2526tag=ws%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B00005JKDR%25253FSubscriptionId=1S237H5RAT7XRSK25H82313http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg6043http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg14099http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg475335http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg6043http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg14099http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKDR.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg4753351.85:1G (General Audience)Peter DocterDavid SilvermanLee Unkrich0786936164886AnimatedClosed-captionedColorDolbyDubbedWidescreenNTSCSpanishDubbedEnglishOriginal Language2999USD$29.992DVD12002-09-1793Disney/Pixar2001-11-027869361648861749USD$17.491050USD$10.501300USD$13.00664780Amazon.comThe folks at Pixar can do no wrong with <I>Monsters, Inc.</I>, the studio's fourth feature film, which stretches the computer animation format in terms of both technical complexity and emotional impact. The giant, blue-furred James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (wonderfully voiced by John Goodman) is a scare-monster extraordinaire in the hidden world of Monstropolis, where the scaring of kids is an imperative in order to keep the entire city running.

bdee1 · #2 (**permalink**) 12-20-05, 01:32 PM

Ok so i figured that maybe thats just the way the xml displays if you try and do a standard print so i thought i woudl try to go ahead and parse it. so here is the page with the new xml parsing code:

PHP Code:


			
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

<title>Amazon Test</title>

</head>



<body>

<?php

    if (! empty($_POST['searchTerms']))

    {

        print "Search Terms: ".$_POST['searchTerms']."<br>";

        $requestAddress = "http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService&SubscriptionId=1S237H5RAT7XRSK25H82&Operation=ItemSearch&Keywords=";

        $requestAddress .= $_POST['searchTerms'];

        $requestAddress .= "&SearchIndex=DVD&ResponseGroup=Request,Images,SalesRank,Medium";

        

        

        $parser = xml_parser_create();

        

        xml_parser_set_option($parser, XML_OPTION_CASE_FOLDING, 0);

        xml_set_element_handler( $parser, "start_handler", "end_handler" );

        xml_set_character_data_handler($parser, "char_data");

        

        $xml_str = file_get_contents($requestAddress,0);

        //print "<br />$xml_str<br />";

        

        xml_parse($parser, $xml_str) or die( format_error($parser));

        

        function start_handler($parser, $el_name, $attribs)

        {

            print "START: $el_name: <br />\n";

            foreach($attribs as $at_name=>$at_val)

            {

                print "\t$at_name=>\"$at_val\"<br />\n";

            }

            print "\t<blockquote><div>\n";

        }

        

        function end_handler($parser, $el_name)

        {

            print "\t</div></blockquote>\n";

            print "END: $el_name<br />\n";

        }

        

        function char_data($parser, $data)

        {

            print "\tchar data:<i>".trim($data)."</i><br />\n";

        }

        

        function format_error ($p)

        {

            $code = xml_get_error_code($p);

            $str = xml_error_string($code);

            $line = xml_get_current_line_number ($p);

            return "XML ERROR ($code): $str at line $line";

            

        }

        

    }

?>







<p><strong>Search For a Movie</strong></p>

<form name="form1" method="post" action="<?php print $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>">

Keywords:<input type="text" name="searchTerms" size="40" />

<input type="submit" value="     Search     " />

</form>



</body>

</html>

when i run it, and enter a search phrase, i get the following errors:

Code:

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler end_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler end_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler char_data() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler end_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler end_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler start_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

Warning: xml_parse() [function.xml-parse]: Unable to call handler end_handler() in C:\Inetpub\SVIntranet\PHPTest\myAmazon.php on line 28

and they go on and on.

i looked around on google and most of the time it sounds like this occurs because the handler functions were not created but as you can see i have the handler functions.

can someone please give me some insight as to whats going on here?