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[web] Error on 1st line of XML file (I copied and pasted from an example)

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Started by Evil Booger January 03, 2008 05:20 PM

6 comments, last by rip-off 16 years, 3 months ago

Evil Booger

100

Author

January 03, 2008 05:20 PM

I'm tryig to learn xml and I'm recieving an "unexpected T_STRING" on the first line of the external xml file. Here's my index.php:


<html>
<?php require('blogtastic.xml');?>
<body>
</body>
</html>

And here's blogtastic.xml, the file that creates the error(first line remember?):


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<moviebase>
 <movie>
  <title>
   PHP: Behind the Parser
  </title>
  <plot>
   So, this language. It's like, a programming language. Or is it a
   scripting language? All is revealed in this thrilling horror spoof
   of a documentary.
  </plot>
 </movie>
</moviebase>

And here is the exact error:


Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in C:\xampp\htdocs\php_practice\blogtastic.xml on line 1

I am using XAMPP(v 2.5) if that helps.

Forfaox

1,217

January 03, 2008 05:27 PM

Quote:Original post by Evil Booger
I'm tryig to learn xml and I'm recieving an "unexpected T_STRING" on the first line of the external xml file.

My assumption is that you have short_open_tag on.

With 'require', you are telling PHP to read the xml file, and interpret it. The <? that starts your xml header is interpreted as 'PHP starts here', so php happily continues parsing and will assume that 'xml version="1.0"' is PHP code.

There are two solutions, either turn off the short_open_tag configuration option, or change your xml file to read <?php echo '<?xml version="1.0">'; ?>

Evil Booger

100

Author

January 03, 2008 06:18 PM

But I thought that it didn't count since the file extension was .xml.

I choose the first option because everyone says to not use the short tags anyways. So...how do I do it? That's not the same as the http document is it?

Evil Booger

100

Author

January 03, 2008 06:35 PM

For some reason, the text between the <plot> tags are printed onto the screen. The text in the title tags are put as the page's title. I think my comp's trating it like a html page.

sigsegv42

158

January 03, 2008 06:47 PM

For the first solution, search for "short_open_tag" in your php.ini configuration file.

There's also a third consideration: simply delete the "<?xml ..." line from the xml file. This will have the effect of making the xml file not a valid xml document anymore - however, the resulting html document being served to the browser won't be valid html after including your xml document either way anyway.

PHP doesn't care about the file extensions of required/included files - the file will be processed the same no matter what extension the file is given.

rip-off

11,000

January 03, 2008 06:54 PM

What are you trying to do?

If you don't want PHP to interpret the file as a potential source of PHP code, use a different function, not require(). I have relatively little experience in PHP, but these two (file, readfile) might be more suited to whatever you are trying.

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Evil Booger

100

Author

January 04, 2008 08:14 PM

Ok, I found a way to do it using the require function. Its the first example on the php simple xml manual.

rip-off

11,000

January 05, 2008 08:46 AM

Quote:Original post by Evil Booger
Ok, I found a way to do it using the require function. Its the first example on the php simple xml manual.

Don't do that. If a file is really XML, don't put PHP in it.

Use something like this (help.xml is the same content as on linked site):

<?$raw = file_get_contents("help.xml");$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($raw);echo $xml->movie[0]->plot;?>

This is better because:

0) the file remains valid xml
1) you don't have to depend on a magic variable name in the file

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