Last updated: Fri, 20 Nov 2009

The DOMDocument class

Introduction

Represents an entire HTML or XML document; serves as the root of the document tree.

Class synopsis

DOMDocument

DOMDocument extends DOMNode {

/* Properties */

readonly public string $actualEncoding ;

readonly public DOMConfiguration $config ;

readonly public DOMDocumentType $doctype ;

readonly public DOMElement $documentElement ;

public string $documentURI ;

public string $encoding ;

public bool $formatOutput ;

readonly public DOMImplementation $implementation ;

public bool $preserveWhiteSpace = true ;

public bool $recover ;

public bool $resolveExternals ;

public bool $standalone ;

public bool $strictErrorChecking = true ;

public bool $substituteEntities ;

public bool $validateOnParse = false ;

public string $version ;

readonly public string $xmlEncoding ;

public bool $xmlStandalone ;

public string $xmlVersion ;

/* Methods */

__construct ([ string $version [, string $encoding ]] )

DOMAttr createAttribute ( string $name )

DOMAttr createAttributeNS ( string $namespaceURI , string $qualifiedName )

DOMCDATASection createCDATASection ( string $data )

DOMComment createComment ( string $data )

DOMDocumentFragment createDocumentFragment ( void )

DOMElement createElement ( string $name [, string $value ] )

DOMElement createElementNS ( string $namespaceURI , string $qualifiedName [, string $value ] )

DOMEntityReference createEntityReference ( string $name )

DOMProcessingInstruction createProcessingInstruction ( string $target [, string $data ] )

DOMText createTextNode ( string $content )

DOMElement getElementById ( string $elementId )

DOMNodeList getElementsByTagName ( string $name )

DOMNodeList getElementsByTagNameNS ( string $namespaceURI , string $localName )

DOMNode importNode ( DOMNode $importedNode [, bool $deep ] )

mixed load ( string $filename [, int $options = 0 ] )

bool loadHTML ( string $source )

bool loadHTMLFile ( string $filename )

mixed loadXML ( string $source [, int $options = 0 ] )

void normalizeDocument ( void )

bool registerNodeClass ( string $baseclass , string $extendedclass )

bool relaxNGValidate ( string $filename )

bool relaxNGValidateSource ( string $source )

int save ( string $filename [, int $options ] )

string saveHTML ( void )

int saveHTMLFile ( string $filename )

string saveXML ([ DOMNode $node [, int $options ]] )

bool schemaValidate ( string $filename )

bool schemaValidateSource ( string $source )

bool validate ( void )

int xinclude ([ int $options ] )

/* Inherited methods */

DOMNode DOMNode::appendChild ( DOMNode $newnode )

DOMNode DOMNode::cloneNode ([ bool $deep ] )

public int DOMNode::getLineNo ( void )

bool DOMNode::hasAttributes ( void )

bool DOMNode::hasChildNodes ( void )

DOMNode DOMNode::insertBefore ( DOMNode $newnode [, DOMNode $refnode ] )

bool DOMNode::isDefaultNamespace ( string $namespaceURI )

bool DOMNode::isSameNode ( DOMNode $node )

bool DOMNode::isSupported ( string $feature , string $version )

string DOMNode::lookupNamespaceURI ( string $prefix )

string DOMNode::lookupPrefix ( string $namespaceURI )

void DOMNode::normalize ( void )

DOMNode DOMNode::removeChild ( DOMNode $oldnode )

DOMNode DOMNode::replaceChild ( DOMNode $newnode , DOMNode $oldnode )

}

Properties

actualEncoding: Deprecated. Actual encoding of the document, is a readonly equivalent to encoding.
config: Deprecated. Configuration used when DOMDocument::normalizeDocument() is invoked.
doctype: The Document Type Declaration associated with this document.
documentElement: This is a convenience attribute that allows direct access to the child node that is the document element of the document.
documentURI: The location of the document or NULL if undefined.
encoding: Encoding of the document, as specified by the XML declaration. This attribute is not present in the final DOM Level 3 specification, but is the only way of manipulating XML document encoding in this implementation.
formatOutput: Nicely formats output with indentation and extra space.
implementation: The DOMImplementation object that handles this document.
preserveWhiteSpace: Do not remove redundant white space. Default to TRUE.
recover: Proprietary. Enables recovery mode, i.e. trying to parse non-well formed documents. This attribute is not part of the DOM specification and is specific to libxml.
resolveExternals: Set it to TRUE to load external entities from a doctype declaration. This is useful for including character entities in your XML document.
standalone: Deprecated. Whether or not the document is standalone, as specified by the XML declaration, corresponds to xmlStandalone.
strictErrorChecking: Throws DOMException on errors. Default to TRUE.
substituteEntities: Proprietary. Whether or not to substitute entities. This attribute is not part of the DOM specification and is specific to libxml.
validateOnParse: Loads and validates against the DTD. Default to FALSE.
version: Deprecated. Version of XML, corresponds to xmlVersion
xmlEncoding: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the encoding of this document. This is NULL when unspecified or when it is not known, such as when the Document was created in memory.
xmlStandalone: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, whether this document is standalone. This is FALSE when unspecified.
xmlVersion: An attribute specifying, as part of the XML declaration, the version number of this document. If there is no declaration and if this document supports the "XML" feature, the value is "1.0".

DOMDocument::__construct — Creates a new DOMDocument object
DOMDocument::createAttribute — Create new attribute
DOMDocument::createAttributeNS — Create new attribute node with an associated namespace
DOMDocument::createCDATASection — Create new cdata node
DOMDocument::createComment — Create new comment node
DOMDocument::createDocumentFragment — Create new document fragment
DOMDocument::createElement — Create new element node
DOMDocument::createElementNS — Create new element node with an associated namespace
DOMDocument::createEntityReference — Create new entity reference node
DOMDocument::createProcessingInstruction — Creates new PI node
DOMDocument::createTextNode — Create new text node
DOMDocument::getElementById — Searches for an element with a certain id
DOMDocument::getElementsByTagName — Searches for all elements with given tag name
DOMDocument::getElementsByTagNameNS — Searches for all elements with given tag name in specified namespace
DOMDocument::importNode — Import node into current document
DOMDocument::load — Load XML from a file
DOMDocument::loadHTML — Load HTML from a string
DOMDocument::loadHTMLFile — Load HTML from a file
DOMDocument::loadXML — Load XML from a string
DOMDocument::normalizeDocument — Normalizes the document
DOMDocument::registerNodeClass — Register extended class used to create base node type
DOMDocument::relaxNGValidate — Performs relaxNG validation on the document
DOMDocument::relaxNGValidateSource — Performs relaxNG validation on the document
DOMDocument::save — Dumps the internal XML tree back into a file
DOMDocument::saveHTML — Dumps the internal document into a string using HTML formatting
DOMDocument::saveHTMLFile — Dumps the internal document into a file using HTML formatting
DOMDocument::saveXML — Dumps the internal XML tree back into a string
DOMDocument::schemaValidate — Validates a document based on a schema
DOMDocument::schemaValidateSource — Validates a document based on a schema
DOMDocument::validate — Validates the document based on its DTD
DOMDocument::xinclude — Substitutes XIncludes in a DOMDocument Object

DOMDocument::__construct

DOMComment::__construct

Last updated: Fri, 20 Nov 2009

add a note User Contributed Notes
DOMDocument

fcartegnie
31-Oct-2009 10:30


Be careful with formatOutput().



Creating an empty node like this:

createElement('foo','')

instead of

createElement('foo')

will break formatOutput.

Yarg Dahc
06-Oct-2009 02:08


Child class of DOMDocument which has a toArray() method. Enjoy and/or improve

<?php

class MyDOMDocument extends DOMDocument

{

    public function toArray(DOMNode $oDomNode = null)

    {

        // return empty array if dom is blank

        if (is_null($oDomNode) && !$this->hasChildNodes()) {

            return array();

        }

        $oDomNode = (is_null($oDomNode)) ? $this->documentElement : $oDomNode;

        if (!$oDomNode->hasChildNodes()) {

            $mResult = $oDomNode->nodeValue;

        } else {

            $mResult = array();

            foreach ($oDomNode->childNodes as $oChildNode) {

                // how many of these child nodes do we have?

                // this will give us a clue as to what the result structure should be

                $oChildNodeList = $oDomNode->getElementsByTagName($oChildNode->nodeName);  

                $iChildCount = 0;

                // there are x number of childs in this node that have the same tag name

                // however, we are only interested in the # of siblings with the same tag name

                foreach ($oChildNodeList as $oNode) {

                    if ($oNode->parentNode->isSameNode($oChildNode->parentNode)) {

                        $iChildCount++;

                    }

                }

                $mValue = $this->toArray($oChildNode);

                $sKey   = ($oChildNode->nodeName{0} == '#') ? 0 : $oChildNode->nodeName;

                $mValue = is_array($mValue) ? $mValue[$oChildNode->nodeName] : $mValue;

                // how many of thse child nodes do we have?

                if ($iChildCount > 1) {  // more than 1 child - make numeric array

                    $mResult[$sKey][] = $mValue;

                } else {

                    $mResult[$sKey] = $mValue;

                }

            }

            // if the child is <foo>bar</foo>, the result will be array(bar)

            // make the result just 'bar'

            if (count($mResult) == 1 && isset($mResult[0]) && !is_array($mResult[0])) {

                $mResult = $mResult[0];

            }

        }

        // get our attributes if we have any

        $arAttributes = array();

        if ($oDomNode->hasAttributes()) {

            foreach ($oDomNode->attributes as $sAttrName=>$oAttrNode) {

                // retain namespace prefixes

                $arAttributes["@{$oAttrNode->nodeName}"] = $oAttrNode->nodeValue;

            }

        }

        // check for namespace attribute - Namespaces will not show up in the attributes list

        if ($oDomNode instanceof DOMElement && $oDomNode->getAttribute('xmlns')) {

            $arAttributes["@xmlns"] = $oDomNode->getAttribute('xmlns');

        }

        if (count($arAttributes)) {

            if (!is_array($mResult)) {

                $mResult = (trim($mResult)) ? array($mResult) : array();

            }

            $mResult = array_merge($mResult, $arAttributes);

        }

        $arResult = array($oDomNode->nodeName=>$mResult);

        return $arResult;

    }

}



$sXml = <<<XML

<nodes>

    <node>text<node>

    <node>

        <field>hello<field>

        <field>world<field>

    <node>

<nodes>

XML;

$dom = new MyDOMDocument;

$dom->loadXml($sXml);

var_dump($dom->toArray());

?>

Output:



array (

    "nodes" => array (

        "node" => array (

            0 => "text",

            1 => array (

            "field" => array (

                0 => "hello",

                1 => "world"

            )

        )

    )

 )

PhilipWayneRollins at gmail dot com
15-Aug-2009 10:32


If you want to use the DOMDocument to create xHTML documents here is a simple class



Note this is designed for creating xHTML documents from scratch but could be easily extended to work with xHTML documents. Also this is for xHTML not XML.



<?php

    class Document

    {

        public $doctype;

        public $head;

        public $title = 'Sensei Ninja';

        public $body;

        private $styles;

        private $metas;

        private $scripts;

        private $document;

        

        

        function __construct (  )

        {

            $this->document = new DOMDocument( );

            $this->head = $this->document->createElement( 'head', ' ' );

            $this->body = $this->document->createElement( 'body', ' ' );

        }

        

        

        public function addStyleSheet ( $url, $media='all' )

        {

            $element = $this->document->createElement( 'link' );

            $element->setAttribute( 'type', 'text/css' );

            $element->setAttribute( 'href', $url );

            $element->setAttribute( 'media', $media );

            $this->styles[] = $element;

        }

        

        

        public function addScript ( $url )

        {

            $element = $this->document->createElement( 'script', ' ' );

            $element->setAttribute( 'type', 'text/javascript' );

            $element->setAttribute( 'src', $url );

            $this->scripts[] = $element;

        }

        

        

        public function addMetaTag ( $name, $content )

        {

            $element = $this->document->createElement( 'meta' );

            $element->setAttribute( 'name', $name );

            $element->setAttribute( 'content', $content );

            $this->metas[] = $element;

        }

        

        

        public function setDescription ( $dec )

        {

            $this->addMetaTag( 'description', $dec );

        }

        

        

        public function setKeywords ( $keywords )

        {

            $this->addMetaTag( 'keywords', $keywords );

        }

        

        public function createElement ( $nodeName, $nodeValue=null )

        {

          return $this->document->createElement( $nodeName, $nodeValue ); 

        }

        

        public function assemble ( )

        {

            // Doctype creation

            $doctype = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML TRANSITIONAL 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">';

            

            // Create the head element

            $title = $this->document->createElement( 'title', $this->title );

            // Add stylesheets if needed

            if ( is_array( $this->styles ))

                foreach ( $this->styles as $element )

                    $this->head->appendChild( $element );

            // Add scripts if needed

            if(  is_array( $this->scripts ))

                foreach ( $this->scripts as $element )

                    $this->head->appendChild( $element );

            // Add meta tags if needed

            if ( is_array( $this->metas ))

                foreach ( $this->metas as $element )

                    $this->head->appendChild( $element );

            $this->head->appendChild( $title );

            

            // Create the document

            $html = $this->document->createElement( 'html' );

            $html->setAttribute( 'xmlns', 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' );

            $html->setAttribute( 'xml:lang', 'en' );

            $html->setAttribute( 'lang', 'en' );

            $html->appendChild( $this->head );

            $html->appendChild( $this->body );

            

            

            $this->document->appendChild( $html );

            return $doctype . $this->document->saveXML( );

        }

        

    }

    

?>



Small example



<?php

        $document = new Document( );

    $document->title = 'Hello';

    $document->addStyleSheet( 'StyleSheets/main.css' );

    $div = $document->createElement( 'div' );

    $div->nodeValue = 'Hello, world!';

    $div->setAttribute( 'style', 'color: red;' );

    $document->body->appendChild( $div );

    printf( '%s', $document->assemble( ) );

?>

e dot sand at elisand dot com
19-Jun-2009 06:19


It should be pointed out that DOMDocument extends DOMNode in every way... that means that you even have access to the DOMNode properties (even though the documentation here does not mention them as being inherited).



I used to use an XPath query to access nodes from a DOMDocument (when getElementById or getElementsByTagName weren't usable), as I believed this to be the only way.  However, since DOMDocument fully extends DOMNode, you can use DOMDocument->firstChild for example to get the first child node.



This simplifies things quite a bit when using an XPath query may seem a bit excessive to get access to something as simple as the child nodes.

cmyk777 at gmail dot com
23-May-2009 09:31


This function may help to debug current dom element:



<?php

function dom_dump($obj) {

    if ($classname = get_class($obj)) {

        $retval = "Instance of $classname, node list: \n";

        switch (true) {

            case ($obj instanceof DOMDocument):

                $retval .= "XPath: {$obj->getNodePath()}\n".$obj->saveXML($obj);

                break;

            case ($obj instanceof DOMElement):

                $retval .= "XPath: {$obj->getNodePath()}\n".$obj->ownerDocument->saveXML($obj);

                break;

            case ($obj instanceof DOMAttr):

                $retval .= "XPath: {$obj->getNodePath()}\n".$obj->ownerDocument->saveXML($obj);

                //$retval .= $obj->ownerDocument->saveXML($obj);

                break;

            case ($obj instanceof DOMNodeList):

                for ($i = 0; $i < $obj->length; $i++) {

                    $retval .= "Item #$i, XPath: {$obj->item($i)->getNodePath()}\n".

"{$obj->item($i)->ownerDocument->saveXML($obj->item($i))}\n";

                }

                break;

            default:

                return "Instance of unknown class";

        }

    } else {

        return 'no elements...';

    }

    return htmlspecialchars($retval);

}

?>



Example usage:



<?php

$dom = new DomDocument();

$dom->load('test.xml');

$body = $dom->documentElement->getElementsByTagName('book');

echo '<pre>'.dom_dump($body).'<pre>';

?>



Output:



Instance of DOMNodeList, node list: 

Item #0, XPath: /library/book[1]

<book isbn="0345342968">

<title>Fahrenheit 451</title>

<author>R. Bradbury</author>

<publisher>Del Rey</publisher>

</book>

Item #1, XPath: /library/book[2]

<book isbn="0048231398">

<title>The Silmarillion</title>

<author>J.R.R. Tolkien</author>

<publisher>G. Allen &amp; Unwin</publisher>

</book>

Item #2, XPath: /library/book[3]

<book isbn="0451524934">

<title>1984</title>

<author>G. Orwell</author>

<publisher>Signet</publisher>

</book>

Item #3, XPath: /library/book[4]

<book isbn="031219126X">

<title>Frankenstein</title>

<author>M. Shelley</author>

<publisher>Bedford</publisher>

</book>

Item #4, XPath: /library/book[5]

<book isbn="0312863551">

<title>The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress</title>

<author>R. A. Heinlein</author>

<publisher>Orb</publisher>

</book>

Atanas Markov (dreamer79bg at gmail dot com)
30-Nov-2008 08:59


Here is a simple web scraping example using the PHP DOM that tries to get the largest text body of a HTML document. I needed it for a spider that had to show a short description for a page. It assumes that document annotation can be the largest <div>, <td> or <p> element in the page. 


In the example I show a way to prevent a bug in the DOM as it sometimes just doesn't recognize html encoding. It seems to work if you put charset meta tag right after the head tag of the document.





<?php


$ch= curl_init();


curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, '...put url here...' );


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);


curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_VERBOSE,1);


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'set sth...');


curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, '...set sth...'); //just a fake referer


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);


curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST,0);


curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 20);





$html= curl_exec($ch);


$html1= curl_getinfo($ch);





//try to get page encoding as it was sent from server


if ($html1['content_type']){


    $arr= explode('charset=',$html1['content_type']);


    $csethdr= strtolower(trim($arr[1]));


} else {


    $csethdr= false;


}





$cset= false;


$arr= array();





//This has to replace page meta tags for charset with utf-8, but it doesn't actually help(see the bug info).


if (preg_match_all(


'/(<meta\s*http-equiv="Content-Type"\s*content="[^;]*;


\s*charset=([^"]*?)(?:"|\;)[^>]*>)/' //merge this line


,$html,$arr,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER)){


    $cset= strtolower(trim($arr[2][0]));


    if ($cset!='utf-8'||$cset!=$csethdr){


        $new= str_replace($arr[2][0],'utf-8',$arr[1][0]);


        $html= str_replace($arr[1][0],$new,$html);


        $cset= $csethdr;


    } else {


        $cset= false;


    }





    if ($cset=='utf-8'){


        $cset= false;


    }


}


unset($arr);


if ($cset){


    $html= iconv($cset,'utf-8',$html);


}


unset($cset);





//solve dom bug


$html=preg_replace('/<head[^>]*>/','<head>


<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">


',$html);





$dom= new DOMDocument();


$dom->loadHTML($html);


$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;





function getMaxTextBody($dom){


    $content = $dom->getElementsByTagname('div');


    $content2= $dom->getElementsByTagname('td');


    $content3= $dom->getElementsByTagname('p');





    $new= array();


    foreach ($content as $value) {


        $new[]= $value;


        unset($value);


    }


    unset($content);





    foreach ($content2 as $value) {


        $new[]= $value;


        unset($value);


    }


    unset($content2);





    foreach ($content3 as $value) {


        $new[]= $value;


        unset($value);


    }


    unset($content3);





    $maxlen= 0;


    $result= '';


    foreach ($new as $item)


    {


        $str= $item->nodeValue;


        if (strlen($str)>$maxlen){


            $content1= $item->getElementsByTagName('div');


            $content2= $item->getElementsByTagname('td');


                        $content3= $item->getElementsByTagname('p');


            $contentnew= array();


            foreach ($content1 as $value) {


                $contentnew[]= $value;


                unset($value);


            }


            unset($content1);


            foreach ($content2 as $value) {


                $contentnew[]= $value;


                unset($value);


            }


            unset($content2);


            foreach ($content3 as $value) {


                $contentnew[]= $value;


                unset($value);


            }


            unset($content3);





            if (count($contentnew)==0){


                $result= $str;


            } else {


                foreach ($contentnew as $value) {


                    $str1= getMaxTextBody($value);


                    $str2= $value->nodeValue;


                        //let's say largest body has more than 50% of the text in its parent


                                    if (strlen($str1)*2<strlen($str2)){


                        $str1= $str2;


                    }


                    if (strlen($str1)*2>strlen($str)&&strlen($str1)>$maxlen){


                        $result= $str1;


                    } elseif (strlen($str1)>$maxlen){


                        $result= $str1;


                    }


                    $maxlen= strlen($result);


                }


            }


            $maxlen= strlen($result);


            unset($contnentnew);


        }


    }





    unset($new);


    return $result;


}


print getMaxTextBody($dom);





?>

Jochem Blok
15-May-2008 03:58


To indent a XML in a pretty way I use:



<?

$sXML = '<root><element><key>a</key><value>b</value></element></root>';

$doc = new DOMDocument();

$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

$doc->formatOutput   = true;

$doc->loadXML($sXML);

echo $doc->saveXML();

?>

Fernando H
11-Apr-2008 09:48


Showing a quick example of how to use this class, just so that new users can get a quick start without having to figure it all out by themself. ( At the day of posting, this documentation just got added and is lacking examples. )



<?php



// Set the content type to be XML, so that the browser will   recognise it as XML.

header( "content-type: application/xml; charset=ISO-8859-15" );



// "Create" the document.

$xml = new DOMDocument( "1.0", "ISO-8859-15" );



// Create some elements.

$xml_album = $xml->createElement( "Album" );

$xml_track = $xml->createElement( "Track", "The ninth symphony" );



// Set the attributes.

$xml_track->setAttribute( "length", "0:01:15" );

$xml_track->setAttribute( "bitrate", "64kb/s" );

$xml_track->setAttribute( "channels", "2" );



// Create another element, just to show you can add any (realistic to computer) number of sublevels.

$xml_note = $xml->createElement( "Note", "The last symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven." );



// Append the whole bunch.

$xml_track->appendChild( $xml_note );

$xml_album->appendChild( $xml_track );



// Repeat the above with some different values..

$xml_track = $xml->createElement( "Track", "Highway Blues" );



$xml_track->setAttribute( "length", "0:01:33" );

$xml_track->setAttribute( "bitrate", "64kb/s" );

$xml_track->setAttribute( "channels", "2" );

$xml_album->appendChild( $xml_track );



$xml->appendChild( $xml_album );



// Parse the XML.

print $xml->saveXML();



?>



Output:

<Album>

  <Track length="0:01:15" bitrate="64kb/s" channels="2">

    The ninth symphony

    <Note>

      The last symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.

    </Note>

  </Track>

  <Track length="0:01:33" bitrate="64kb/s" channels="2">Highway Blues</Track>

</Album>



If you want your PHP->DOM code to run under the .xml extension, you should set your webserver up to run the .xml extension with PHP ( Refer to the installation/configuration configuration for PHP on how to do this ).



Note that this:

<?php

$xml = new DOMDocument( "1.0", "ISO-8859-15" );

$xml_album = $xml->createElement( "Album" );

$xml_track = $xml->createElement( "Track" );

$xml_album->appendChild( $xml_track );

$xml->appendChild( $xml_album );

?>



is NOT the same as this:

<?php

// Will NOT work.

$xml = new DOMDocument( "1.0", "ISO-8859-15" );

$xml_album = new DOMElement( "Album" );

$xml_track = new DOMElement( "Track" );

$xml_album->appendChild( $xml_track );

$xml->appendChild( $xml_album );

?>



although this will work:

<?php

$xml = new DOMDocument( "1.0", "ISO-8859-15" );

$xml_album = new DOMElement( "Album" );

$xml->appendChild( $xml_album );

?>

add a note

DOMDocument::__construct

DOMComment::__construct

Last updated: Fri, 20 Nov 2009

The DOMDocument class

Introduction

Class synopsis

Properties

See Also

Table of Contents