I didn’t get any reply from the general forum and so I move this question here and hope to have a better luck.

I am thinking to build a client’s website using EE.  The site is pretty standard stuff.  The only thing that is different is that some of the contents must be pulled from the headquarter site as an xml data source. (e.g. http;/example.com/abc.xml)

Is it possible to parse some XML files from another site and to display the contents on the template accordingly.  The magpie plugin won’t work since my files are not standard RSS/Atom files.  They have customized tags like “LeftContent”, “RightContent”...etc

I think someone mentions the use of Parse_XML class but do I really to get my feet wet to develop a module to handle this.

Thanks.

Can it be done? Of course, parsing XML is pretty standard using PHP. Can EE do it out of the box, ie does it come with an inbuilt, drop-in XML parser? No, it does not.

We do have an XML Parser class which can assist you, as the resulting data structure is a bit easier to traverse than what PHP provides on its own, but it will still take a bit of development on your part to process.

That’s what I need to hear.  So I do need to take into account to develop a module in order to use EE to meet my client’s criteria.

And I agree xml parsing is pretty standard and that’s why I am surprised to see no such tool is available yet for EE.  And that’s why I ask to ensure I didn’t miss anything here.  Thanks anyway.

Well the XML Parsing class is such a tool, but it’s broad-based since we cannot make assumptions about the structure and elements of your XML document.  The reason Magpie can do this so easily with a tag-based gateway (via the {exp:magpie} plugin tag) is because RSS/Atom XML docs have an expected structure and elements.  That’s not to say that a tag-based gateway to the XML Parsing class could not be made to handle a wide variety of document structures, but I would estimate that most of the users that could handle the complexity that that would require are probably versed enough in PHP to make use of our parsing class just as easily.  Don’t hesitate to post to the How To forum if you run into any speed-bumps with using the parser class, or the modules forums if you need help putting together a module to do the same.

I am thinking on the line to parse the whole xml documents and store all structures and elements into an array and a developer can select the tags to display the content in whatever way they want.

That is similar to the resulting data structure from our included XML parsing class, so you may still find it helpful.  You may have an existing preference for your PHP data structures though, so there’s certainly no harm in handling it exclusively without using our tools.

You also might want to take a look at this plugin I recently discovered: http://www.brandnewbox.co.uk/docs/Home/Plugin:XMLGrab/

No personal experience with it yet, but might be worth a try.