Loop through XML and group by

HTML & CSS
1

Hi, I am new to XML. I really hope someone can help. I am using xml and php 4. i would like to loop through and display the xml data but group by attribute type. so for example i would like it to look like this;

Movie = James Bond, Jason Bourne
Book = Lindsay Ford

Here is an example of my XML;

<favorites>
<interesting>
<type category =“Movie”>
<character>James Bond</character>
<name>Casino Royale</name>
</interesting>
<interesting>
<type category =“Movie”>
<character>Jason Bourne</character>
<name>Bourne Identity</name>
</interesting>
<interesting>
<type category =“Book”>
<character>Lindsay Ford</character>
<name>Shantaram</name>
</type>
</interesting>
</favorites>

Thank you to everyone

2

<favorites>
<interesting>
<type category =“Movie”>
<character>James Bond</character>
<name>Casino Royale</name>
</interesting>
<interesting>
<type category =“Movie”>
<character>Jason Bourne</character>
<name>Bourne Identity</name>
</interesting>
<interesting>
<type category =“Book”>
<character>Lindsay Ford</character>
<name>Shantaram</name>
</type>
</interesting>
</favorites>

I recently had a very similar requirement and eventually got somewhere with this which I hope I’m adapting correctly to cover your requirement

The following is using php:


$url=simplexml_load_file($your_xml);
//find out the number of type nodes
//this is the trunk point where the 'category' attribute can have different values 
$noTypes=count($url->favorites>interesting->type);
//loop through each of the type nodes using the following count as control
$i=0;
foreach ($url->favorites->interesting->type as $type) {
//following means type[0] are the movies type[1] the books
foreach ($type->attributes() as $typeName=>$typeValue) {
foreach ($url->favorites->interesting->type[$i] as $nodes) { 
echo $nodes->character;
echo $nodes->name;
}
$i++; 
}
}