How to generate XML files using php

XML is a popular data interchange and storage format used on the internet. XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. Custom markups can be created in XML. XML was designed to describe data while HTML was designed for data presentation. In a previous tutorial we learned how to parse XML using php simplexml library, this tutorial explores how to generate XML files using php.

In order to generate XML files using php DOMDocument class, we are going to do following steps.

Create a database dbbookstore and table tbl_books

First, we are going to create database for our bookstore application and a table for books.

SQL for creating database dbbookstore and table tbl_books

CREATE DATABASE dbbookstore;

CREATE TABLE `books` (

  `id` int(11) NOT NULL,

  `title` varchar(500) NOT NULL,

  `author_name` varchar(500) NOT NULL,

  `price` varchar(500) NOT NULL,

  `ISBN` varchar(50) NOT NULL,

  `category` varchar(100) NOT NULL

) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=8 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;



INSERT INTO `books` (`id`, `title`, `author_name`, `price`, `ISBN`, `category`) VALUES

(1, 'C++ By Example', 'John', '500', 'PR-123-A1', 'Programming'),

(2, 'Java Book', 'Jane davis', '450', 'PR-456-A2', 'Programming'),

(3, 'Database Management Systems', 'Mark', '300', 'DB-123-ASD', 
'Database'),

(4, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', 'J.K. Rowling', '650', 'FC-123-456', 'Novel'),

(5, 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Jane Austen', '450', 'FC-456-678', 'Novel'),

(6, 'Learning Web Development ', 'Michael', '300', 'ABC-123-456', 'Web Development'),

(7, 'Professional PHP & MYSQL', 'Programmer Blog', '340', 'PR-123-456', 'Web Development');


ALTER TABLE `books` ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`);


ALTER TABLE `books`  MODIFY `id` int(11) NOT NULL  AUTO_INCREMENT,AUTO_INCREMENT=8;

DOMDocument class to generate XML files using php

PHP DOMDocument class can be used to read or generate XML files. Here we want to generate XML  file from a bookstore database. Generated XML document will contain title, author name, price, ISBN and category of books. An attribute id in book element will be added. In order to do above tasks you have to:

1. Connect to database using mysqli

First you need to connect to database using mysqli method. This method requires host, username, password and database. If connection is successful, a connection object is returned else an error is thrown.

/** create XML file */ 
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "root", "root", "dbbookstore");

/* check connection */
if ($mysqli->connect_errno) {

   echo "Connect failed ".$mysqli->connect_error;

   exit();
}

2. Select records from books table

Next to select records from books table. A query is passed to connection object’s query() method. query() method returns a result set. To fetch data rows from result set fetch_assoc function is used. This function fetches rows from result set as an associative array.

In a while loop data rows are pushed into an array. If there are records in the array then createXMLfile() function is called with books array parameter.

$query = "SELECT id, title, author_name, price, ISBN, category FROM books";

$booksArray = array();

if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {

    /* fetch associative array */
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {

       array_push($booksArray, $row);
    }
  
    if(count($booksArray)){

         createXMLfile($booksArray);

     }

    /* free result set */
    $result->free();
}

/* close connection */
$mysqli->close();

3. Create XML file using createXMLfile() function

Finally to generate XML file using php DOMDocument class a function createXMLfile is created. and array of books data is passed as parameter.

function createXMLfile($booksArray){
  
   $filePath = 'book.xml';

   $dom     = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'utf-8'); 

   $root      = $dom->createElement('books'); 

   for($i=0; $i<count($booksArray); $i++){
     
     $bookId        =  $booksArray[$i]['id'];  

     $bookName      =   htmlspecialchars($booksArray[$i]['title']);

     $bookAuthor    =  $booksArray[$i]['author_name']; 

     $bookPrice     =  $booksArray[$i]['price']; 

     $bookISBN      =  $booksArray[$i]['ISBN']; 

     $bookCategory  =  $booksArray[$i]['category'];	

     $book = $dom->createElement('book');

     $book->setAttribute('id', $bookId);

     $name     = $dom->createElement('title', $bookName); 

     $book->appendChild($name); 

     $author   = $dom->createElement('author', $bookAuthor); 

     $book->appendChild($author); 

     $price    = $dom->createElement('price', $bookPrice); 

     $book->appendChild($price); 

     $isbn     = $dom->createElement('ISBN', $bookISBN); 

     $book->appendChild($isbn); 
     
     $category = $dom->createElement('category', $bookCategory); 

     $book->appendChild($category);
 
     $root->appendChild($book);

   }

   $dom->appendChild($root); 

   $dom->save($filePath); 

 } 

Source code to generate XML files using php

<?php

/** create XML file */ 
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "root", "", "dbbookstore");

/* check connection */
if ($mysqli->connect_errno) {

   echo "Connect failed ".$mysqli->connect_error;

   exit();
}

$query = "SELECT id, title, author_name, price, ISBN, category FROM books";

$booksArray = array();

if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {

    /* fetch associative array */
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {

       array_push($booksArray, $row);
    }
  
    if(count($booksArray)){

         createXMLfile($booksArray);

     }

    /* free result set */
    $result->free();
}

/* close connection */
$mysqli->close();

function createXMLfile($booksArray){
  
   $filePath = 'book.xml';

   $dom     = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'utf-8'); 

   $root      = $dom->createElement('books'); 

   for($i=0; $i<count($booksArray); $i++){
     
     $bookId        =  $booksArray[$i]['id'];  

     $bookName = htmlspecialchars($booksArray[$i]['title']);

     $bookAuthor    =  $booksArray[$i]['author_name']; 

     $bookPrice     =  $booksArray[$i]['price']; 

     $bookISBN      =  $booksArray[$i]['ISBN']; 

     $bookCategory  =  $booksArray[$i]['category'];	

     $book = $dom->createElement('book');

     $book->setAttribute('id', $bookId);

     $name     = $dom->createElement('title', $bookName); 

     $book->appendChild($name); 

     $author   = $dom->createElement('author', $bookAuthor); 

     $book->appendChild($author); 

     $price    = $dom->createElement('price', $bookPrice); 

     $book->appendChild($price); 

     $isbn     = $dom->createElement('ISBN', $bookISBN); 

     $book->appendChild($isbn); 
     
     $category = $dom->createElement('category', $bookCategory); 

     $book->appendChild($category);
 
     $root->appendChild($book);

   }

   $dom->appendChild($root); 

   $dom->save($filePath); 

 } 

Download source code from GitHub

Source code for this tutorial can be found at GitHub. Please clone or download from this repository.

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Summary

To sum up, in this tutorial we learned how to generate XML files using php from bookstore database. Please leave your valuable feedback and comments.

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