How to extract a chunk of an xml using PHP?

Question

How can I capture/return everything between tags <*:Body> and </*:Body> using PHP, so that it doesn’t matter how many lines there are before or after both tags?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
 <soapenv:Body>
  <ConsultarRequest>
   <Cliente>
    <sistema>XPTO</sistema>
   </Cliente>
   <numDDD>xx</numDDD>
   <numTerminal>xxxxxxxx</numTerminal>
  </ConsultarRequest>
 </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

The final result I hope is:

  <ConsultarRequest>
   <Cliente>
    <sistema>XPTO</sistema>
   </Cliente>
   <numDDD>xx</numDDD>
   <numTerminal>xxxxxxxx</numTerminal>
  </ConsultarRequest>

Important: XML has a variable structure. In some cases within body there can be several values at the same level. Optionally I would like to do this via regex, interval tags <soapenv:body> and </soapenv:body>.

Answer 1

Don’t use Regex for that, not that it won’t work, but if anything changes in xml SOAP you will have to maintain your regex for sure, and until maintenance occurs everything will be broken.

What you can (and should preferably) use is DOMDocument+DOMXapth (or other DOM Apis for PHP), example that will solve your case:

<?php

$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
 <soapenv:Body>
  <ConsultarRequest>
   <Cliente>
    <sistema>XPTO</sistema>
   </Cliente>
   <numDDD>xx</numDDD>
   <numTerminal>xxxxxxxx</numTerminal>
  </ConsultarRequest>
 </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>';

$encontrou = false;

$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->loadxml($xml);

$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);

//Registrado o namespace para que a query funcione com ele
$xpath->registerNamespace('soapenv', 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/');

//O `//` busca o elemento <soapenv:Body> em QUALQUER parte do documento
$elementos = $xpath->query("//soapenv:Body");

//Verifica se retornou pelo menos um elemento
if ($elementos) {
    //Dentro <soapenv:Body> pega o primeiro elemento, que no seu exemplo é o `<ConsultarRequest>`, mas pode variar dependendo da resposta
    $node = $elementos[0]->getElementsByTagName('*')->item(0);

    //Se encontrar um elemento então entra na IF
    if ($node) {
        $encontrou = true;

        //Pega o conteudo do primeiro elemento, incluindo ele, e transforma em uma string
        $html = $node->ownerDocument->saveHTML( $node );

        echo 'Resultado:<br>';
        echo htmlentities($html); //O htmlentities é somente para você visualizar no navegador, ele é dispensável
    }
}

if (!$encontrou) {
    echo 'não foram encontrados elementos';
}

Whether to manipulate/read data from <ConsultarRequest> you may not need to turn into a string, or need the string for anything, the string itself DOMNode and DOMXpath will solve all your problems, for example:

<?php

$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
 <soapenv:Body>
  <ConsultarRequest>
   <Cliente>
    <sistema>XPTO</sistema>
   </Cliente>
   <numDDD>xx</numDDD>
   <numTerminal>xxxxxxxx</numTerminal>
  </ConsultarRequest>
 </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>';

$encontrou = false;

$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->loadxml($xml);

$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);

$sistema = $xpath->query("//ConsultarRequest/Cliente/sistema");
$ddd = $xpath->query("//ConsultarRequest/numDDD");
$terminal = $xpath->query("//ConsultarRequest/numTerminal");

echo 'Sistema: ', $sistema[0]->nodeValue, '<br>';
echo 'ddd: ', $ddd[0]->nodeValue, '<br>';
echo 'Terminal: ', $terminal[0]->nodeValue, '<hr>';