Grabbing The Contents of An XML File With An XMLHttpRequest Using PHP

Introduction

This article explains how to obtain XML using XMLHttpRequest then parse the plain text and specific values using PHP. I will use a JavaScript function to take the XML data that was returned by the Ajax call using "xhr.ResponseXML" and parse it for the name tag element values.

Example

This is your "pets.xml" file:

<dog>

<animalname>Puppy</animalname>

<color>white</color>

<breed>simple</breed>

</dog>

<dog>

</dog>

<cat>

<animalname>Sheru</animalname>

<color>black</color>

</cat>

</animals>

This your "dog.php" file that retrieves the contents of the "pets.xml" file with an XMLHttpRequest and displays it as plain text. The script only retrieves an XML element value; name attributes are discarded.

<html>

<head>

<title>ajax grabbed plain text</title>

#content{

border: 1px solid black;

width: 250px;

background-color:#FFCCCC;

padding: 10px;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<p><strong>ajax grabbed with plain text</strong></p>

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

xhr.open("GET", "pets.xml", true);

xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {

if (xhr.readyState == 4) {

var message = "";

if (xhr.status == 200) {

message = "<pre>" + xhr.responseText + "</pre>";

}

else {

message = "Error has been occured";

}

document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = message;

}

xhr.send(null);

</script>

</body>

</html>

Output

Example

The following grabs XML with XMLHttpRequest and parses for specific values using PHP.