How to Remove a Parent Node in SimpleXML Using XPath?

SimpleXML - Removing XPath Nodes

Question:

In SimpleXML, how can I delete a parent node associated with a specific element identified through XPath?

Problem Description:

Using the following code to find and remove an item with a specific item_id fails:

<code class="php">$xml = simplexml_load_file($filename);
$data = $xml->xpath('//items/info[item_id="' . $item_id . '"]');
$parent = $data[0]->xpath("parent::*");
unset($parent);</code>

The unset($parent) statement does not eliminate the parent node.

Answer:

Directly calling unset() on an object variable ($parent in this case) only removes the object reference, not the node itself.

Solution Using DOMDocument:

<code class="php">$doc = new DOMDOcument;
$doc->loadxml(...XML string...);
$item_id = 456;

$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
foreach($xpath->query('//items[info/item_id="' . $item_id . '"]') as $node) {
  $node->parentNode->removeChild($node);
}</code>

This loop iterates through matching nodes, removes the parent node, and updates the $doc object.

Output:

<code class="xml"><?xml version="1.0"?>
<foo>
  <items>
    <info>
      <item_id>123</item_id>
    </info>
  </items>

  <items>
    <info>
      <item_id>789</item_id>
    </info>
  </items>
</foo></code>

The above is the detailed content of How to Remove a Parent Node in SimpleXML Using XPath?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!