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POxml foreach skipping over if statement in php
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copied!<p>Here's what I am trying to achieve. I am importing an xml file of products (the product tag has an id attribute: as an example.</p> <p>There is 1 tag (category) inside the product tag that I am trying to retrieve but I only want one instance of it. So I created a flag to help distinguish when the product id changes. </p> <p>My code looks like this</p> <pre><code><?php $flag='start'; foreach($xml->product as $product) { $attrs = $product->attributes(); echo "$attrs ($flag)"; // just used for testing results if ($flag != $attrs) { echo "| <a href='xmltest.php?menuitem=$attrs'>".$product->category." </a><br>"; $flag=$attrs; } } ?> </code></pre> <p>What should happen on the first run is the flag doesn't match the attrs, the link is echoed, the flag now matches the attrs. </p> <p>If I have 5 product tags with ID's of 1,1,2,2,2, the code should echo the link twice (first when $flag=start while $attrs=1, and when $flag=1 while $attrs=2)...</p> <p>Instead, it echoes it all 5 times, basically ignoring the if statement.</p> <p>I can't see where I am going wrong with the if statement. Can anyone help?</p> <p><em><strong>Update</em></strong> Thanks Showerhead, I have been trying your suggestions and I am a bit closer than before.</p> <p>I did the var_dump and the result I am seeing looks like this</p> <blockquote> <p>flag var_dump result:string(5) "start" attrs var_dump result: object(SimpleXMLElement)#6 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } 0 (0)</p> <p>flag var_dump result:object(SimpleXMLElement)#6 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } </p> <p>attrs var_dump result: object(SimpleXMLElement)#5 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } 0 (0)</p> <p>flag var_dump result:object(SimpleXMLElement)#5 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } </p> <p>attrs var_dump result: object(SimpleXMLElement)#4 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } 1 (0)</p> <p>flag var_dump result:object(SimpleXMLElement)#4 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "0" } } </p> <p>attrs var_dump result: object(SimpleXMLElement)#8 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "1" } } 1 (1)</p> <p>flag var_dump result:object(SimpleXMLElement)#8 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(1) { ["id"]=> string(1) "1" } } </p> </blockquote> <p>I understand now how the $flag var starts off as a string and then adopts the value of the array.</p> <p>I tried if( ! is_array($flag) && $flag != $attrs) { but the results were the same.</p> <p>Is there another way I can get the values to be similar for comparison?</p> <p>Thanks again,</p> <p>UPDATE</p> <p>a simple explode helped solve it. Here is the code that is working for me.</p> <pre><code><?php $flag='start'; foreach($xml->product as $product) { $category = $product->category; $attrsvar = $product->attributes(); $attrs = explode(" ", $attrsvar); if( ! is_array($flag) && $flag != $attrs[0]) { echo " <a href='xmltest.php?menuitem=".$attrs[0]."'>".$category." </a> | "; $flag=$attrs[0]; } } ?> </code></pre>

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