(PHP ActiveX) XML Tree Traversal Order for Search* Methods

The Chilkat XML API provides a number of Search* methods for locating XML nodes based on criteria. These methods traverse an XML document in a breadth-first order. (See Breadth-First Search).

The XML document used in this example has the following tree structure:

The nodes are traversed in the order: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K.

The input XML, available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/searchOrder.xml, is this:

<a>crocodileA
    <b>crocodileB
        <d>crocodileD</d>
        <e>crocodileE
            <h>crocodileH</h>
            <i>crocodileI</i>
        </e>
    </b>
    <c>crocodileC
        <f>crocodileF</f>
        <g>crocodileG
            <j>crocodileJ</j>
            <k>crocodileK</k>
        </g>
    </c>
</a>

Chilkat ActiveX Downloads ActiveX for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Note: The php_com_dotnet.dll may need to be enabled inside of php.ini.

<?php

// For versions of Chilkat < 10.0.0, use new COM('Chilkat_9_5_0.Chilkat.Xml')
$xml = new COM("Chilkat.Xml");

// The sample input XML is available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/searchOrder.xml
$success = $xml->LoadXmlFile('searchOrder.xml');
if ($success != 1) {
    print $xml->LastErrorText . "\n";
    exit;
}

// IMPORTANT:  The following loop for iterating over all 
// matching nodes performs reasonably well for small to 
// mid-size XML documents or sub-trees.  Performance
// can be poor when the sub-tree contains many thousands
// of nodes (or more).

// NOTE:  The search is always rooted at the calling node.
// In this example, it happens to also be the root node of the entire
// XML document.  Searches can be performed on sub-trees
// within the document by calling the Search* method from
// the root node of a sub-tree.

// Demonstrate the breadth-first traversal:
// xBeginAfter is a Chilkat.Xml
$xBeginAfter = $xml->GetSelf();
// xFound is a Chilkat.Xml
$xFound = $xml->SearchAllForContent($xBeginAfter,'*croc*');
while (($xml->LastMethodSuccess == 1)) {

    print $xFound->Tag . "\n";

    // xBeginAfter is a Chilkat.Xml
    $xBeginAfter = $xFound;
    // xFound is a Chilkat.Xml
    $xFound = $xml->SearchAllForContent($xBeginAfter,'*croc*');
}


?>