1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:04,790 XML used to be king when it came to sharing data on the web, but 2 00:00:04,790 --> 00:00:09,960 XML is a lot more complicated and people appreciate the ease of use of JSON. 3 00:00:09,960 --> 00:00:13,200 But XML is also a lot more detailed. 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,790 You can convey a lot more than just a simple object. 5 00:00:16,790 --> 00:00:21,130 As with so many things, one is not necessarily better than the other. 6 00:00:21,130 --> 00:00:25,650 They're just different, because they're different, they have different uses. 7 00:00:25,650 --> 00:00:29,410 You'll often find XML being used for things such as our assessed feeds for 8 00:00:29,410 --> 00:00:31,340 blogs or podcasts. 9 00:00:31,340 --> 00:00:34,160 I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some of my 10 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:35,700 favorite podcasts. 11 00:00:35,700 --> 00:00:39,760 At the same time, we use some of PHP's built in functionality for 12 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:40,860 working with XML. 13 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:46,240 Like I said before, XML can be a lot more detailed and complicated. 14 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:50,020 So, if you're trying to do anything very complicated, I'd suggest you look for 15 00:00:50,020 --> 00:00:53,000 a package that will give you a lot more features. 16 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,768 See the notes attached to this video for more information. 17 00:00:55,768 --> 00:00:58,550 Open podcasts.php. 18 00:00:58,550 --> 00:00:59,900 Once again. 19 00:00:59,900 --> 00:01:03,400 I've started by showing the contents of an XML file. 20 00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:07,250 Since XML uses tags, just like HTML does, 21 00:01:07,250 --> 00:01:12,420 we need to use the htmlspecialchars function for these tags to be visible. 22 00:01:12,420 --> 00:01:16,250 I have also included a sample podcast and an episode. 23 00:01:16,250 --> 00:01:17,605 Let's preview this in a browser. 24 00:01:21,012 --> 00:01:26,010 We can see that the XML file has a lot more details than the JSON file. 25 00:01:26,010 --> 00:01:30,920 So it's not quite as clean, but we have a channel for the podcast with the details 26 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:37,960 about the podcast itself, and then items with details about individual episodes. 27 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:41,517 Let's go back to work spaces, remove the file display and 28 00:01:41,517 --> 00:01:44,866 replace the sample podcast with the data from the XML. 29 00:01:52,405 --> 00:01:57,560 For this example, I have multiple XML files, one for each podcast. 30 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:01,570 Let's use what we learned in the first section, to read the files from the XML 31 00:02:01,570 --> 00:02:05,870 directory, and put them into an array first we'll create an empty array. 32 00:02:05,870 --> 00:02:07,385 We'll call it files. 33 00:02:11,047 --> 00:02:12,044 Then we'll set our directory. 34 00:02:21,104 --> 00:02:27,722 If Opendir, 35 00:02:27,722 --> 00:02:33,728 our directory And closedir. 36 00:02:39,886 --> 00:02:42,522 Now we'll loop through the directory. 37 00:02:42,522 --> 00:02:52,108 while (($entry=readdir($fh)) 38 00:02:52,108 --> 00:02:55,670 !==false. 39 00:03:00,210 --> 00:03:02,869 I don't want any files that start with a dot. 40 00:03:06,758 --> 00:03:12,726 If substring, the entry, starting with the first character and 41 00:03:12,726 --> 00:03:19,707 polling one character Does not equal dot. 42 00:03:24,664 --> 00:03:26,876 Then we're going to add this entry to the files. 43 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:38,496 Directory slash entry. 44 00:03:38,496 --> 00:03:40,364 Now we can loop through each of our files. 45 00:03:44,763 --> 00:03:48,850 If not empty files. 46 00:03:51,708 --> 00:03:57,826 For each $files as $file. 47 00:03:57,826 --> 00:04:02,470 And then, we're going to use a simplexml load file function, 48 00:04:02,470 --> 00:04:09,977 to parse the XML file into an object, xml = simplexml_ 49 00:04:09,977 --> 00:04:15,785 load_file(file). 50 00:04:15,785 --> 00:04:20,627 Now we're ready to replace the sample podcast with the details from our 51 00:04:20,627 --> 00:04:21,362 XML file. 52 00:04:43,683 --> 00:04:44,508 First we add our link. 53 00:04:46,974 --> 00:04:51,305 XML channel link, 54 00:05:04,005 --> 00:05:13,970 Title, Description. 55 00:05:13,970 --> 00:05:16,570 Now I don't want to show every episode. 56 00:05:16,570 --> 00:05:19,062 So instead, I'm going to pull a random 57 00:05:19,062 --> 00:05:29,062 item. 58 00:05:35,161 --> 00:05:40,922 Make sure that we subtract one from the count, since the rand range is inclusive. 59 00:05:52,230 --> 00:05:58,863 Item random, And then the title. 60 00:06:03,478 --> 00:06:05,774 Let's copy this for the rest of our episode. 61 00:06:19,230 --> 00:06:25,549 Our audio source is a little tricky, Enclosure, 62 00:06:28,429 --> 00:06:32,458 Attributes, And then, URL. 63 00:06:38,046 --> 00:06:40,330 And we'll use the link to the podcast once more. 64 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:50,459 Let's take a look at what we have so far An error, let's go fix that. 65 00:07:02,788 --> 00:07:08,550 We have a list of podcasts with a random episode to try, and a link to learn more. 66 00:07:08,550 --> 00:07:13,250 When we refresh, we get a different episode for each podcast. 67 00:07:13,250 --> 00:07:15,280 There's one more thing that I want to show you. 68 00:07:15,280 --> 00:07:16,624 So let's go back to workspaces. 69 00:07:18,257 --> 00:07:22,130 This is a great place to demonstrate pulling external files. 70 00:07:22,130 --> 00:07:27,030 Any of the functions that read files can read any file from anywhere. 71 00:07:27,030 --> 00:07:30,670 As long as you have access and correct permissions. 72 00:07:30,670 --> 00:07:35,780 It doesn't matter if the files are local to your computer, on a local network or 73 00:07:35,780 --> 00:07:36,760 even somewhere on the web. 74 00:07:38,050 --> 00:07:40,001 Let's add another of my favorite podcasts. 75 00:07:51,423 --> 00:07:52,190 Files. 76 00:08:09,249 --> 00:08:10,678 Now let's view this in the browser again. 77 00:08:16,472 --> 00:08:20,050 This new podcast was added, right along with all the others.