PHP - SAX Parser Example

SAX parser has used to parse the xml file and better for memory management than sample xml parser and DOM. It does not keep any data in memory so it can be used for very large files. Following example will show how to get data from xml by using SAX API.

SAX.xml

XML should be as follows −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8"?>
<tutors>
   <course>
      <name>Android</name>
      <country>India</country>
      <email>contact@tutorialspoint.com</email>
      <phone>123456789</phone>
   </course>
   
   <course>
      <name>Java</name>
      <country>India</country>
      <email>contact@tutorialspoint.com</email>
      <phone>123456789</phone>
   </course>
   
   <course>
      <name>HTML</name>
      <country>India</country>
      <email>contact@tutorialspoint.com</email>
      <phone>123456789</phone>
   </course>
</tutors>

SAX.php

Php file should as follows −

<?php
   //Reading XML using the SAX(Simple API for XML) parser 
   
   $tutors   = array();
   $elements   = null;
   
   // Called to this function when tags are opened 
   function startElements($parser, $name, $attrs) {
      global $tutors, $elements;
      
      if(!empty($name)) {
         if ($name == 'COURSE') {
            // creating an array to store information
            $tutors []= array();
         }
         $elements = $name;
      }
   }
   
   // Called to this function when tags are closed 
   function endElements($parser, $name) {
      global $elements;
      
      if(!empty($name)) {
         $elements = null;
      }
   }
   
   // Called on the text between the start and end of the tags
   function characterData($parser, $data) {
      global $tutors, $elements;
      
      if(!empty($data)) {
         if ($elements == 'NAME' || $elements == 'COUNTRY' ||  $elements == 'EMAIL' ||  $elements == 'PHONE') {
            $tutors[count($tutors)-1][$elements] = trim($data);
         }
      }
   }
   
   // Creates a new XML parser and returns a resource handle referencing it to be used by the other XML functions. 
   $parser = xml_parser_create(); 
   
   xml_set_element_handler($parser, "startElements", "endElements");
   xml_set_character_data_handler($parser, "characterData");
   
   // open xml file
   if (!($handle = fopen('sax.xml', "r"))) {
      die("could not open XML input");
   }
   
   while($data = fread($handle, 4096)) // read xml file {
      xml_parse($parser, $data);  // start parsing an xml document 
   }
   
   xml_parser_free($parser); // deletes the parser
   $i = 1;
   
   foreach($tutors as $course) {
      echo "course No - ".$i.'<br/>';
      echo "course Name - ".$course['NAME'].'<br/>';
      echo "Country - ".$course['COUNTRY'].'<br/>';
      echo "Email - ".$course['EMAIL'].'<br/>';
      echo "Phone - ".$course['PHONE'].'<hr/>'; 
      $i++; 
   }
?>

It will produce the following result −