Get XML data from website inside PHP file (Internal Server Error)

Question

I need to get XML data from a website using an API key, and I'm using AJAX and PHP. Here's my AJAX code (btw, the PHP file is inside a FileZilla server):

var xmlHttpObj=null;
var isPostBack=false;

function CreateXmlHttpRequestObject( )
{ 

  if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {
    xmlHttpObj=new XMLHttpRequest()
  }
  else if (window.ActiveXObject)
  {
    xmlHttpObj=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
  }
  return xmlHttpObj;
}

function MakeHTTPCall_Tags()
{     

  var link = "http://phpdev2.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~i110815/recebeXml.php";
  xmlHttpObj = CreateXmlHttpRequestObject();
  xmlHttpObj.open("GET", link, true);
  xmlHttpObj.onreadystatechange = stateHandler_Tags;
  xmlHttpObj.send();

}

function stateHandler_Tags()
{
  if ( xmlHttpObj.readyState == 4 && xmlHttpObj.status == 200)
  {       
      var selectTags = document.getElementById("tag");
      var option;
      var docxml = xmlHttpObj.responseXML;
      var nodelist = docxml.getElementById("name");
      alert(nodelist.length);
  }  
}

Here's the PHP code:

<?php
    header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * ");
    // pedido ao last.fm com a função file_gets_contents 
    // a string XML devolvida pelo servidor last.fm fica armazenada na variável $respostaXML 
    $respostaXML= 
    file_get_contents("http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?method=tag.getTopTags&api_key=4399e62e9929a254f92f5cde4baf8a16"); 

    // criar um objecto DOMDocument e inicializá-lo com a string XML recebida 
    $newXML= new DOMDocument('1.0', 'ISO-8859-1'); 
    $newXML->loadXML($respostaXML); 
    echo $newXML;
?>

I'm getting this error from the browser console: GET http://phpdev2.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~i110815/recebeXml.php 500 (Internal Server Error) Anybody knows whats wrong?

Please do not change your question to ask about another error. Ask a new question instead. If you change the question to something else, given answers will no longer fit. — Gordon, Oct 19 '14 at 15:14

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

1

Internal Server Error is just the generic name for a 500 HTTP Status Code:

500 Internal Server Error A generic error message, given when an unexpected condition was encountered and no more specific message is suitable.

You have to check your webserver's error log to find details about the actual error.

Judging by the code sample you show, the error is likely because of this part

$newXML->loadXML($respostaXML); 
echo $newXML;

Your $newXML is a DOMDocument instance. It doesn't implement __toString so it cannot be echoed this way. You have to use

DOMDocument::saveXML — Dumps the internal XML tree back into a string

In other words:

$newXML->loadXML($respostaXML); 
echo $newXML->saveXml();

See my introduction to DOMDocument in php

On a side note: there is no point in loading the XML into DOM if all you want to do is fetch the XML from the remote API and then output it. Just do a readfile instead of file_get_contents and remove everything after the call.

If this doesn't fix the error, I assume your server has allow_url_fopen disabled and you cannot make requests to remote urls. You need to find another way of downloading the XML then.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

Community

1
1

answered Oct 17 '14 at 22:42

Gordon

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I commented xmlHttpObj.send(null); because that's where the error was, but without that line it doesn't do anything, so I presume I can't access the file in the server – Adam Silva Oct 17 '14 at 22:55
@AdamSilva have you checked the server's error log like I asked you to do? – Gordon Oct 18 '14 at 08:11
Ok, so I'm not getting any errors anymore, but my PHP file isn't receiving correctly the XML data from the website. I've already changed the PHP and JS files above – Adam Silva Oct 19 '14 at 15:06
@Adam if my answer solved your Internal Server Error, I suggest you accept the answer and ask a new one about getting the correct XML data. – Gordon Oct 19 '14 at 15:09

Get XML data from website inside PHP file (Internal Server Error)

1 Answers1