XML to fill drop down menu

LiamBFC · April 25th, 2007, 01:17 PM

I have a form, with 3 drop down menus on it.

The values of these drop down menus I'd like to come from an XML file that looks like the below:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manufacturers>
    <manufacturer name="Audi">
        <model name="A4">
            <vtrim>1</vtrim>
        </model>
        <model name="A6">
            <vtrim>1</vtrim>
        </model>
        <model name="A8">
            <vtrim>1</vtrim>
        </model>
        <model name="Quattro">
            <vtrim>1</vtrim>
        </model>
        <model name="TT">
            <vtrim>1</vtrim>
        </model>
    </manufacturer>
</manufacturers>

Now I am not entirely sure whether or not this is valid XML. But essentially, what I want to happen is have the Manufacturer's drop down box fill with just the manufacturer names, and then when one of those is selected, it determines the values in the box below it for the Models - preferrably without reloading the page.

Is there an easy way to do this using what I have above or have I done it completely wrong?

What I've tried to do so far is do it using PHP5. Just to debug and check I could pull values from the XML data, I used the following code:

Code:

if(!$xml=simplexml_load_file('Vehicles.xml')){
                        trigger_error('Error reading XML file',E_USER_ERROR);
                    }
                    echo 'Displaying contents of XML file...<br />';
                    foreach($xml as $makes){
                        echo 'Name: '.$makes->manufacturer.' Model: '.$makes->model.'
                    Trim: '.$makes->vtrim.'<br />';
                    }

But all it prints our to screen is '; foreach($xml as $makes){ echo 'Name: '.$makes->manufacturer.' Model: '.$makes->model.' Trim: '.$makes->vtrim.'
'; } ?>

Please help, I need to get this up and running as soon as I can!

Liam Gulliver,
http://p2p.neopian-hosting.com
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dafl00 · April 27th, 2007, 11:46 PM

The XML is fine, you just have to run the structure in PHP.
For example, your foreach statement is iterating through manufacturers first so you would start off with this:

Code:

foreach ($xml as $manufacturer)
{
}

Next, you want to display the manufacturer's name:

Code:

foreach ($xml as $manufacturer)
{
   // The manufacturer's name comes from an attribute
   $m_name = $manufacturer->attributes()->name;
   echo "Manufacturer: $m_name\n<br />";
}

And finally, you need to iterate through the model:

Code:

foreach ($xml as $manufacturer)
{
   // The manufacturer's name comes from an attribute
   $m_name = $manufacturer->attributes()->name;
   echo "Manufacturer: $m_name\n<br />";

   foreach ($manufacturer as $model)
   {
      $model_name = $model->attributes()->name;
      $vtrim = $model->vtrim;

      echo "Model: $model_name<br />VTrim: $vtrim<br />";
   }
}

see.. not too bad
of course this example is hard-coded for the specific XML file that you've supplied and you'll probably have to tweek the PHP in order to read a much more complex XML file.