XML_Unserializer Options

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Introduction to options

Options let you influence how XML_Unserializer treats the parsed XML. It allows you to define whether attributes should be parsed, whether to use associative arrays or objects for complex data types, and more.

Options can be passed as an associative array to the constructor of XML_Unserializer. You may also use setOption(), or setOptions() to set one or more options after the instance of XML_Unserializer has been created.

All available options

Here is a list of all options supported by XML_Unserializer.

Table 68-1. XML_Unserializer options

XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION_ Name	Alternate Key for $options Array	Possible values	Default	Description
_COMPLEXTYPE	complexType	'array' or 'object'	'array'	Defines whether nested tags should be returned as associative arrays or objects.
_TAG_AS_CLASSNAME	tagAsClass	`TRUE` or `FALSE`	`TRUE`	Defines whether the tag name should be used as the class name if complexType is set to 'object'. If no class with the name of the tag exists, the class defined by 'defaultClass' is used.
_DEFAULT_CLASS	defaultClass	any string	stdClass	Defines the class that is used to create objects, if the complexType option is set to 'object'.
_ATTRIBUTE_KEY	keyAttribute	any string or array	'_originalKey'	If the attribute specified in this option exists for a tag, the value will be used as key or property name in the parent object or array. You may also specify an associative array if you want to use different key attributes for different tags. In this case, the array key contains the tag name and the array value the corresponding attribute name.
_ATTRIBUTE_TYPE	typeAttribute	any string	'_type'	If this attribute exists for a tag, the tag content will be converted to the specified type. Possible types are: string, integer, float, boolean, array, and object.
_ATTRIBUTE_CLASS	classAttribute	any string	'_class'	If XML_Unserializer creates an object, it will be an instance of the value specified with the defaultClass option, unless the tag has the attribute specified in this option. If it is set, the classname stored in the attribute value will be used.
_ATTRIBUTES_PARSE	parseAttributes	`TRUE` or `FALSE`	`FALSE`	With this option, you may tell XML_Unserializer to also parse the attributes of the tags. The next two options define how to treat the parsed attributes.
_ATTRIBUTES_ARRAYKEY	attributesArray	`FALSE` or any string	`FALSE`	If set to false, the attributes will be treated like nested tags. If you set it to a string, a new aray will be created and stored in the parent structure using key you specified in this option.
_ATTRIBUTES_PREPEND	prependAttributes	any string	''	Allows you to specify a prefix for attribute names.
_CONTENT_KEY	contentName	any string	'_content'	If you decide to parse attributes or a tag contains cdata and tags, then the cdata will be stored in the index specified here.
_TAG_MAP	tagMap	associative array	array()	This allows you to map tag names to PHP classes. The names of the tags have to be in the keys and the values contain the class names to use for each tag.
_FORCE_ENUM	forceEnum	indexed array	array()	This allows you to specify a list of tags which will automatically be converted to an indexed array, independent of the number of repetitions of the tag. This can save you some IF conditions in your code.
_ENCODING_SOURCE	encoding	any valid encoding string (accepted by XML_Parser)	null	Defines the encoding of the original document.
_ENCODING_TARGET	targetEncoding	any valid encoding string (accepted by XML_Parser)	null	Defines the target encoding of the resulting data.
_DECODE_FUNC	decodeFunction	any valid PHP callback	null	This option allows you to define a callback function or method, that will be applied to all character data and attributes in the document before they are stored in the result. This allows you to decode any decoded data in the XML or convert all content to lowercase.
_RETURN_RESULT	returnResult	`TRUE` or `FALSE`	`FALSE`	If set to `TRUE` XML_Unserializer::unserialize() will return the result if the document could be unserialized instead of just `TRUE`.
_WHITESPACE	whitespace	OPTIONs _WHITESPACE_KEEP, _WHITESPACE_TRIM, or _WHITESPACE_NORMALIZE	_WHITESPACE_TRIM	Defines how whitespace in the document will be treated: keep it all, trim it, or normalize it.
_IGNORE_KEYS	ignoreKeys	any array	array()	List of tags whose contents will be passed to the parent tag instead of creating a new tag.
_GUESS_TYPES	guessTypes	`TRUE` or `FALSE`	`FALSE`	Whether or not to enable automatic type guessing for character data and attributes.
_OVERRIDE_OPTIONS	overrideOptions	`TRUE` or `FALSE`	`FALSE`	Allows you to override the options already set on this unserializer object.

Options via XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION Constants example

The following examples shows how to set options for XML_Unserializer, using the available XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION constants.

Example 68-1. Using the constructor

require_once "XML/Unserializer.php";
$options = array(
    XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION_COMPLEXTYPE => 'array'
);

$us = new XML_Unserializer($options);
$result = $us->unserialize('example.xml', true);

The following example shows how to set options for XML_Unserializer, using the available XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION constants, if the instance already has been created.

Example 68-2. Using setOption() and setOptions()

require_once "XML/Unserializer.php";
$us = new XML_Unserializer();
$options = array(
    XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION_TAG_MAP         => array( 'util' => 'XML_Util' ),
    XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION_ATTRIBUTE_CLASS => '_classname'
);

$us->setOptions($options);
$us->setOption(XML_UNSERIALIZER_OPTION_COMPLEXTYPE, 'object');
$result = $us->unserialize('example.xml', true);

Options via $options examples

The following example shows how to set options for XML_Unserializer, using an $options array.

Example 68-3. Using the constructor

require_once "XML/Unserializer.php";
$options = array(
    'complexType' => 'array'
);

$us = new XML_Unserializer($options);
$result = $us->unserialize('example.xml', true);

The following example shows how to set options for XML_Unserializer, using an $options array, if the instance already has been created.

Example 68-4. Using setOption() and setOptions()

require_once "XML/Unserializer.php";
$us = new XML_Unserializer();
$options = array(
    'tagMap'         => array( 'util' => 'XML_Util' ),
    'classAttribute' => '_classname'
);

$us->setOptions($options);
$us->setOption('complexType', 'object');
$result = $us->unserialize('example.xml', true);

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