Comments on: Zend RESTful XML Generic Functions

By: Derek Martin

Derek Martin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:11:25 +0000

I implemented it as a View Helper, so in my xml view I can do $this->xml($this->content); and in my json view I can do: $this->json($this->content); I got the idea from an article by Matthew Weier O’Phinney, at: http://weierophinney.net/matthew/archives/233-Responding-to-Different-Content-Types-in-RESTful-ZF-Apps.html

By: Fabian

Fabian — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:35:13 +0000

Hi,

one year past by since you wrote this.
I have a better idea (which I didn’t tested yet): Zend_Rest_Controller just extends Zend_Controller_Action, so you can have action helpers. If you create an action helper which is parsing your arrays/objects to XML/JSON you don’t need to extend Zend_Rest_Controller, avoid static methods, pass the output direct to the response object without having view scripts and have a nice and clean solution.

By: Chris Danielson

Chris Danielson — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:36:17 +0000

Charles,
My apologies for the delay. I was on vacation with my family. This looks great! I went ahead and put everything into a code highlighted block! Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Chris

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:19:47 +0000

Hi Chris-

I was having some problems getting arrays and objects to convert to XML. I made a few changes to your posted code, and just wanted to share it. I also removed the runtime call-by-reference markers from the calls to the _xmlHelper method, as this feature has been deprecated, and results in a warning depending on the error reporting level. Here’s the code, my apologies if I’m violating comment ettiquette by listing it out here:

View Code PHP

public static function getXML($obj)
    {
        $doc = new DOMDocument();
        $doc->formatOutput = true;
        $root_element = $doc->createElement("response");
        $doc->appendChild($root_element);
 
        foreach($obj as $var => $value)
        {
            $statusElement = $doc->createElement($var);
            if (!is_array($value) && !is_object($value))
            {
                $statusElement->appendChild($doc->createTextNode($value));
                $root_element->appendChild($statusElement);
            }
            else
            {
                self::_xmlHelper($doc, $root_element, $statusElement, $value);
            }
        }
        print $doc->saveXML();
    }
 
    public static function _xmlHelper(&$doc, &$root_element, &$statusElement, &$value)
    {
        if (is_array($value))
        {
            foreach ($value as $key => $val)
            {
                if (is_array($val))
                {
                    self::_xmlHelper($doc, $root_element, $statusElement, $val);
                }
                else if (is_object($val))
                {
                        $se = $doc->createElement(str_replace('object','',get_class($val)));
                        $arr = get_object_vars($val);
                        self::_xmlHelper($doc, $root_element, $se, $arr);
                        $root_element->appendChild($se);
 
                }
                else
                {
                    //print $key . " => " . $val . "\n";
                        $se = $doc->createElement($key);
                        $se->appendChild($doc->createTextNode($val));
                        $statusElement->appendChild($se);
 
                }
            }
        $root_element->appendChild($statusElement);
        //print_r($value);
        }
        else if (is_object($value))
        {
                $se = $doc->createElement(str_replace('object','',get_class($value)));
                $arr = get_object_vars($value);
                self::_xmlHelper($doc, $root_element, $se, $arr);
                $root_element->appendChild($se);
        }
        else
        {
                $statusElement->appendChild($doc->createTextNode($value));
                $root_element->appendChild($statusElement);
        }
    }