PHP variables added to XML

[Coda]

Basically i have a XML file which i read from for e.g.

<person>
      <firstName> tom</firstName>
</person>

now is it possible to make the first name data read from a php variable say for e.g.

$firstname = "tom"; 

<person>
      <firstName> tom</firstName>
                       // so variable <firstName> is always saved as childNodes [i][0]
</person>

Is this possible :S?

[Decode]

<?php
$file = file_get_contents( "xmlfile.xml" );
$file = explode( "<firstName>" , $file);
echo $file[0];
?>

[Coda]

yeah i know how to retrieve data from a XML file, but what i want is to write data into the XML file but storing it as a php variable rather than a XML variable.

Like say i have in my php page a variable named $name i want to be able to put whatever is stored in that PHP variable into the XML file.

[MrCraig]

fwrite?

[Coda]

yeah but how would i be able to write in a specific place in the XML file without deleting what already in there?

[Protege]

find 'tom', replace it with 'god'...

[Dentafrice]

Do this..

<?php

$name = "Caleb";

$xml .= "<blah>";
$xml .= "<name>" . $name . "</name>";
$xml .= "</blah>";

header("Content-type: text/xml");

echo $xml;

?>

Then just use mod_rewrite to rewrite that to blah.xml or something.

[Protege]

<?php

$exampleXML = '    <persons>
                    <dude>James</dude>
                    <dude>Celeb</dude>
                    <dude>Mark</dude>
                    <dude>God</dude>
                </persons>';

$xmlExplode = explode( '<persons>', $exampleXML );
$xmlPersons = str_replace( '</persons>', '', $xmlExplode[ 1 ] );

$xmlExplode = explode( '<dude>', $xmlPersons );


$xmlCeleb = str_replace( '</dude>', '', $xmlExplode[ 2 ] );
$xmlJames = str_replace( '</dude>', '', $xmlExplode[ 1 ] );

echo( $xmlCeleb );

?>

Something maybe around that?

[Dentafrice]

Why not just use SimpleXML?

[Source]

I was gonna recommend SimpleXML aswel.