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PHP File Handling with PHP Parsing Specific Formats Writing XML

Seth Johnson
Seth Johnson
15,199 Points

"simplexml_load_file" warning

I'm working on this practice project on my local machine, just running a localhost through my terminal on my macbook. I've used "chmod" to adjust the permissions. Every time I try to run the "write_xml" script, I get this warning:

Warning: simplexml_load_file(): I/O warning : failed to load external entity "..data/xml/"

aaaaand, I'm not really sure what's happening. Here's my code:

<?php

$file = '..data/xml/' . filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'file', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
if ($xml = simplexml_load_file($file)) {
  $item = $xml->channel->addChild('item');
  $item->addChild('title', filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'title', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
  $item->addChild('link', filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'link', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
  $date = new DateTime(filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'pubDate',
  FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
  $item->addChild('pubDate', $date->format('D, d M Y H:i:s +0000'));
  $item->addChild('description', filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'description', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING));
}

If anyone can point me in the right direction, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

1 Answer

Broderick Lemke
Broderick Lemke
13,483 Points

Hi Seth,

It looks like your variable $file has an incorrect start to it. It should be $file = '../data/xml/' it looks like you missed a slash.