The DOMElement class

felix dot klee at inka dot de (2013-02-26 15:23:08)

How to rename an element and preserve attributes:

<?php

// Changes the name of element $element to $newName.
function renameElement($element, $newName) {
  $newElement = $element->ownerDocument->createElement($newName);
  $parentElement = $element->parentNode;
  $parentElement->insertBefore($newElement, $element);

  $childNodes = $element->childNodes;
  while ($childNodes->length > 0) {
    $newElement->appendChild($childNodes->item(0));
  }

  $attributes = $element->attributes;
  while ($attributes->length > 0) {
    $attribute = $attributes->item(0);
    if (!is_null($attribute->namespaceURI)) {
      $newElement->setAttributeNS('http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/',
                                  'xmlns:'.$attribute->prefix,
                                  $attribute->namespaceURI);
    }
    $newElement->setAttributeNode($attribute);
  }

  $parentElement->removeChild($element);
}
 
function prettyPrint($d) {
  $d->formatOutput = true;
  echo '<pre>'.htmlspecialchars($d->saveXML()).'</pre>';
}

$d = new DOMDocument( '1.0' );
$d->loadXML('<?xml version="1.0"?>
<library>
  <data a:foo="1" x="bar" xmlns:a="http://example.com/a">
    <invite>
      <username>jmansa</username>
      <userid>1</userid>
    </invite>
    <update>1</update>
  </data>
</library>');

$xpath = new DOMXPath($d);
$elements = $xpath->query('/library/data');
if ($elements->length == 1) {
  $element = $elements->item(0);
  renameElement($element, 'invites');
}

prettyPrint($d);

?>

loopduplicate at burningtoken dot com (2011-04-22 02:34:05)

This works perfect for me as well:

<?php $xml = $domElement->ownerDocument->saveXML($domElement); ?>

cannedmeat at spamulike dot com (2011-03-28 16:49:14)

You want to change the tag name of an element in a DOM tree, preserving the structure of its hierarchy of children? Well for applications like translating custom tags to "real" html I've found the following quickest:

<?php
$Document; // The DOM Document
$Element; // The troublesome element of the document requiring translation

$NewElement = $Document->createElement('newtagname');

// Clone the attributes:
foreach($Element->attributes as $attribute)
$NewElement->setAttribute($attribute->name, $attribute->value);

// Add clones of the old element's children to the replacement
foreach($Element->childNodes as $child)
$NewElement->appendChild($child->cloneNode(true));

// Replace the old node
$Element->parentNode->replaceChild($NewElement, $Element);
?>

Anonymous (2010-12-24 08:22:23)

you can use DOMNode::nodeValue
DOMElement inherits this public property.
$elem->nodeValue

dpetroff ( at ) gmail.com (2010-12-04 23:24:44)

Hi!

Combining all th comments, the easiest way to get inner HTML of the node is to use this function:

<?php
function get_inner_html( $node ) {
    $innerHTML= '';
    $children = $node->childNodes;
    foreach ($children as $child) {
        $innerHTML .= $child->ownerDocument->saveXML( $child );
    }

    return $innerHTML;
}
?>

php at fishpig dot co dot uk (2010-07-11 09:53:50)

A quick an easy way to get a string representation of any XML value is as follows:

<?php

 echo $elem->property->__toString();

?>

adam dot clements at gmail dot com (2010-04-26 11:29:55)

I spent ages figuring out how to get a string representation of a DOMElement (that wasn't the entire DOMDocument), finally I came across this snippet:

<?php $string = $domDocument->saveXML($node); ?>

where $domDocument is the entire document, and $node is the particular node/element/whatever you want a string XML representation of.

nawaman at gmail dot com (2009-09-03 20:08:11)

The following code shows can text-only content be extracted from a document.

<?php
function getTextFromNode($Node, $Text = "") {
    if ($Node->tagName == null)
        return $Text.$Node->textContent;

    $Node = $Node->firstChild;
    if ($Node != null)
        $Text = getTextFromNode($Node, $Text);

    while($Node->nextSibling != null) {
        $Text = getTextFromNode($Node->nextSibling, $Text);
        $Node = $Node->nextSibling;
    }
    return $Text;
}

function getTextFromDocument($DOMDoc) {
    return getTextFromNode($DOMDoc->documentElement);
}

$Doc = new DOMDocument();
$Doc->loadHTMLFile("Test.html");
echo getTextFromDocument($Doc)."\n";
?>

Daniel Morlock (2009-05-07 09:22:28)

It would be nice to have a function which converts a document/node/element into a string. 

Anyways, I use the following code snippet to get the innerHTML value of a DOMNode:

<?php
function getInnerHTML($Node)
{
     $Body = $Node->ownerDocument->documentElement->firstChild->firstChild;
     $Document = new DOMDocument();     
     $Document->appendChild($Document->importNode($Body,true));
     return $Document->saveHTML();
}
?>

patrick smith (2008-11-04 08:14:12)

Although it may be preferable to use the dom to manipulate elements, sometimes it's useful to actually get the innerHTML from a document element (e.g. to load into a client-side editor).

To get the innerHTML of a specific element ($elem_id) in a specific html file ($filepath):

<?php
$innerHTML = '';
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTMLFile($filepath);    
$elem = $doc->getElementById($elem_id);

// loop through all childNodes, getting html        
$children = $elem->childNodes;
foreach ($children as $child) {
    $tmp_doc = new DOMDocument();
    $tmp_doc->appendChild($tmp_doc->importNode($child,true));        
    $innerHTML .= $tmp_doc->saveHTML();
}
?>

Pinochet (2008-10-25 05:33:34)

Hi to get the value of DOMElement just get the nodeValue public parameter (it is inherited from DOMNode):
<?php 
echo $domElement->nodeValue; 
?>
Everything is obvious if you now about this thing ;-)

j DOT wagner ( AT ) medieninnovation.com (2008-10-08 09:11:51)

Caveat!
It took me almost an hour to figure this out, so I hope it saves at least one of you some time.
If you want to debug your DOM tree and try var_dump() or similar you will be fooled into thinking the DOMElement that you are looking at is empty, because var_dump() says: object(DOMElement)#1 (0) { }
After much debugging I found out that all DOM objects are invisible to var_dump() and print_r(), my guess is because they are C objects and not PHP objects. So I tried saveXML(), which works fine on DOMDocument, but is not implemented on DOMElement.
The solution is simple (if you know it):
$xml = $domElement->ownerDocument->saveXML($domElement);
This will give you an XML representation of $domElement.

Severin (2008-09-14 06:18:21)

I wanted to find similar Elements - thats why I built an Xpath-String like this - maybe somebody needs it... its not very pretty - but neither is domdocument :)

<?php

$dom->load($xmlFile))

$xpathQuery = '//*';
$xmlNodes = $xpath->query($xpathQuery);
        
$pathlist = array();
$attrlist = array();
foreach ($xmlNodes as $node) {

  $depth = $this->_getDomDepth($node);   //get Path-Depth (for array key)
  $pathlist[$depth] = $node->tagName;     // tagname
          
  $attrs = $node->attributes;
  $attr='';
  $a=0;
  foreach ($attrs as $attrName => $attrNode)  // attributes
            {
              if ($attrName !='reg')
              {
                if ($a++!=0) $attr .= ' and ';
                $attr .= '@'.$attrName.'='."'".$attrNode->value."'";
              }
            }
          
          $attrlist[$depth] = $attr?'['.$attr.']':'';
          
          $path = ''; for ($i=0;$i<=$depth;$i++) $path .= '/'.$pathlist[$i].$attrlist[$i];  // the xpath of the actual Element

    // ... now you can go on and user $path to find similar elements
    }
  }
}

 private function _getDomDepth(DomNode $node)
   {
     $r = -2;
     while ($node) {
       $r++;  
       $node = $node->parentNode;
     } 
     return  $r;
   }
?>

ae.fxx (2008-07-18 13:49:08)

Hi there.
Remember to append a DOMNode (or any of its descendants) to a DOMDocument __BEFORE__ you try to append a child to it.
I don't know why it has to be this way but it can't be done without it.
bye