boxblinkracer/xpatharray

XPath Access for Arrays

XPathArray - Easy XPath Access for your Arrays

, _(*1)

Why XPathArrays instead of Arrays?

...small and simple, but still powerful... If you use basic Arrays in PHP you are familiar with the array_key_exists function. And yes, this does really blow up your code if you have multiple levels within your array., _(*2)

If you check for existing keys, the only thing you get is a PHP Notice Error, and that obviously doesn't result in an Exception., _(*3)

With XPathArray you get the following:, _(*4)

• Easy XPath Selection in multiple levels, e.g. "/customer/address/street"
• Real XPathKeyNotFound Exceptions instead of PHP Notices
• Default Values for missing keys or values
• ...and a more lightweight code... :)

Installation

This package uses Composer, please checkout the composer website for more information., _(*5)

The following command will install xpatharray into your project. It will also add a new entry in your composer.json and update the composer.lock as well., _(*6)

$ composer require boxblinkracer/xpatharray

This package follows the PSR-4 convention names for its classes, which means you can easily integrate xpatharray classes loading in your own autoloader., _(*7)

What now?

Here are a few examples what to do with XPathArray objects., _(*8)

With Exceptions

In the first example, we access the content of our customer array using XPath syntax. If a key is not found, we will get a XPathNotFoundException., _(*9)

This is perfect, if you want to simply use and validate your structure at once., _(*10)

<?php
//...
$customer = array(...)

# xpath array with / as our delimiter
$xCustomer = new XPathArray('/', $customer);

# object/array access with XPathNotFoundException
/** @var array @address */
$address = $xCustomer->get('/address');

# multi level access
$phoneMobile = $xCustomer->get('/contact/phone/mobile');

# type safe access with internal conversion
$street = $xCustomer->getString('/street');
$streetNumber = $xCustomer->getInt('/streetNr');
$isCompany = $xCustomer->getBool('/isCompany');
$customerRevenue = $xCustomer->getFloat('/revenue/total');

Without Exceptions

In the next example, we want to access the same keys, but we do not want to get any exceptions. So we just provide a default value, that will be returned if the key is either NULL or has not been found at all., _(*11)

This is perfect, if you want to work with optional nodes within your array., _(*12)

<?php
//...
$customer = array(...)

# xpath array with / as our delimiter
$xCustomer = new XPathArray('/', $customer);

# multi level access
$phoneMobile = $xCustomer->get('/contact/phone/mobile', '-');

# type safe access with internal conversion
$street = $xCustomer->getString('/street', '-');
$streetNumber = $xCustomer->getInt('/streetNr', 0);
$isCompany = $xCustomer->getBool('/isCompany', false);
$customerRevenue = $xCustomer->getFloat('/revenue/total', 0.0);

Copying / License

This repository is distributed under the MIT License (MIT). You can find the whole license text in the LICENSE file., _(*13)