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Parsing XML data from hostip.info API service with PHP

Allen Liu — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:35:04 +0000

If you ended up here, then you most likely experienced what I did in trying to figure out how to parse the XML data from the hostip.info web API service.

Basically, it is down to the namespaces that are not accessible by normal means.

Here is the basic XML response from a typical hostip.info call such as http://api.hostip.info/?ip=[IP-ADDRESS]

 version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
 version="1.0.1" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://www.hostip.info/api/hostip-1.0.1.xsd">
   >This is the Hostip Lookup Service>
   >hostip>
   >
      >inapplicable>
   >
   >
      >
         >12.215.42.19>
         >Sugar Grove, IL>
         >UNITED STATES>
         >US>
         
         >
            >
                srsName="http://www.opengis.net/gml/srs/epsg.xml#4326">
                  >-88.4588,41.7696>
               >
            >
         >
      >
   >
>

Here is a nice PHP function that will return all the important pieces for you:

function get_location($ip) {
	$content = @file_get_contents('http://api.hostip.info/?ip='.$ip);
	if ($content != FALSE) {
		$xml = new SimpleXmlElement($content);
		$coordinates = $xml->children('gml', TRUE)->featureMember->children('', TRUE)->Hostip->ipLocation->children('gml', TRUE)->pointProperty->Point->coordinates;
		$longlat = explode(',', $coordinates);
		$location['longitude'] = $longlat[0];
		$location['latitude'] = $longlat[1];		
                $location['citystate'] = '==>'.$xml->children('gml', TRUE)->featureMember->children('', TRUE)->Hostip->children('gml', TRUE)->name;
		$location['country'] =  '==>'.$xml->children('gml', TRUE)->featureMember->children('', TRUE)->Hostip->countryName;
		return $location;
	}
	else return false;
}

Here is the usage:

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$ip = '12.215.42.19';
$location_info = get_location($ip);
var_dump($location_info);

The dump would look something like this:

array(4) {
  ["longitude"]=>
  string(8) "-74.9072"
  ["latitude"]=>
  string(7) "39.9499"
  ["citystate"]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#5 (1) {
    [0]=>
    string(16) "Mount Laurel, NJ"
  }
  ["country"]=>
  object(SimpleXMLElement)#2 (1) {
    [0]=>
    string(13) "UNITED STATES"
  }
}

To access the longitude:
$location_info['longitude'];

To access the latitude:
$location_info['latitude'];

To access the city/state string:
$location_info['citystate'];

To access the country string:
$location_info['country'];

I did not bother to parse the city/state string because I’m not sure if this format is consistent for international addresses.

Anyway, I hope this code helps someone out there =)

Sorting 2D associative arrays in PHP

Allen Liu — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:18:52 +0000

Surprisingly, it took me a long time to find this solution so I decided to post it for anyone who had a situation similar to mine.

Let’s say you have the following 2D associative array in PHP of fruits and their corresponding prices and you want to have them sorted by price:

$fruits = array
(
    [0] => array
        (
            ['product'] => 'banana',
            ['price']     => 2.99
        ),
    [1] => array
        (
            ['product'] => 'apple',
            ['price']     => 1.99
        ),
    [2] => array
        (
            ['product'] => 'durian',  //these smell by the way - i do not know how people can like them =)
            ['price']     => 19.99
        ),
    [3] => array
        (
            ['product'] => 'starfruit', //not too stinky but still stinky nonetheless
            ['price']     => 5.99
        )
);

The answer to this one involves the use of the PHP function, usort, which allows users to define their own comparison function for sorting arrays of all shapes and sizes.

For this example, our function would need to be defined as the following if we wanted to have the prices descending:

function sortDescending ($a, $b)
{
    if ($a['price'] == $b['price']) {
        return 0;
    }
    return ($a['price'] > $b['price']) ? -1 : 1;
}

Here is the slightly different version of the function for an ascending sort:

function sortAscending ($a, $b)
{
    if ($a['price'] == $b['price']) {
        return 0;
    }
    return ($a['price'] < $b['price']) ? -1 : 1;
}

To put it all together in a descending sort, we have the following:

function sortDescending ($a, $b)
{
    if ($a['price'] == $b['price']) {
        return 0;
    }
    return ($a['price'] > $b['price']) ? -1 : 1;
}
usort($fruits, "sortDescending");
 
foreach ($fruits as $fruit) {
    echo $fruit['product'] . ": " . $fruit['price'] . "\n";
}

This would give us the following output:
durian: 19.99 starfruit: 5.99 banana: 2.99 apple: 1.99

How to convert MySQL timestamp to PHP date type

Allen Liu — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:01:52 +0000

Let’s say you have the following PHP code that extracts the date from the times table in your MySQL database. The date is of timestamp type which has the following format: ‘YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS’ or ’2008-10-05 21:34:02.’

$res = mysql_query("SELECT date FROM times;");
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($res) ) {
   echo $row['date'] . "
";
}

This date format that is in the output is in the timestamp format, 2008-10-05 21:34:02, which is not surprising, but you want something that is more “user-friendly” or “readable” as in “9:34 pm October 5, 2008.”

Let’s go back to the drawing board and try again:

$res = mysql_query("SELECT date FROM times;");
while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($res) ) {
   echo date("g:i a F j, Y ", strtotime($row["date"])) . "
";
}

A sample output from this PHP code would be 9:34 pm October 5, 2008 which is much more user-friendly.

The PHP strtotime function parses the MySQL timestamp into a Unix timestamp which can be utilized for further parsing or formatting in the PHP date function.

Here are some other sample date output formats that may be of practical use:

echo date("F j, Y g:i a", strtotime($row["date"]));                  // October 5, 2008 9:34 pm
echo date("m.d.y", strtotime($row["date"]));                         // 10.05.08
echo date("j, n, Y", strtotime($row["date"]));                       // 5, 10, 2008
echo date("Ymd", strtotime($row["date"]));                           // 20081005
echo date('\i\t \i\s \t\h\e jS \d\a\y.', strtotime($row["date"]));   // It is the 5th day.
echo date("D M j G:i:s T Y", strtotime($row["date"]));               // Sun Oct 5 21:34:02 PST 2008

If you found that my code was helpful in any way, shape, or form and would like to buy me a beer, please use the Donate button below =) Cheers!