Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: simplexmlelement

please help with small snippet of code

[marcus76]

hi,

I get the error: Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: simplexmlelement

with the following snippet of code:

// Desired address
$url = "http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=$mapaddress&output=xml&key=$key";
// Retrieve the URL contents
$page = file_get_contents($url);
// Parse the returned XML file
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($page);
// Parse the coordinate string
list($longitude, $latitude, $altitude) = explode(",", $xml->Response->Placemark->Point->coordinates);
// Output the coordinates
echo "latitude: $latitude, longitude: $longitude <br />";

Later i find SimpleXMLElement is not supported under PHP 4.x so i find this code snippet.

$getpage = file_get_contents($url);
$getpage = utf8_encode($getpage);
$responsedoc = domxml_open_mem($getpage);
$response = $responsedoc->get_elements_by_tagname("Response");

if ($response!=null) {
$placemark = $response[0]->get_elements_by_tagname("Placemark");
if ($placemark!=null) {
$point = $placemark[0]->get_elements_by_tagname("Point");
if ($point!=null) {
$cds = $point[0]->get_content();
$c = explode(",", $cds);
$_coords['lon'] = $c[0];
$_coords['lat'] = $c[1];

return $_coords;

echo "$_coords";
}
}
}
return null;

I was wondering if someone can advise where this should fit in / replace what existing code i have and to echo out the lat / long co-ordinates as above.

Many thanks

Marcus

[eelixduppy]

My first question: do you have PHP 5? If not, you aren't going to be able to use simpleXML.

[marcus76]

nope, don't ahve PHP 5.x

"Later i find SimpleXMLElement is not supported under PHP 4.x so i find this code snippet. "

[eelixduppy]

Sorry, didn't see that before. If you want to echo out the values, it looks like you are trying to echo an array incorrectly. Try to change the following:

echo "$_coords"; 

To something like this:

echo 'lon: '.$_coords['lon'].'<br/>lat: '.$_coords['lat']; 

Also, why are you echoing the data after you are returning it? I'd return it and then echo the returned result accordingly from where the function is called.

[marcus76]

tried it lastnight, it didn't echo anythin out?

any ideas...

[eelixduppy]

Where did you put the code? It must be in the correct place (vars must be defined, etc...)