Unable to work with new sitepoint book on XML because host uses PHP4.3

[suehutton]

Hello

I found a thread which discussed whether to abandon php4 in favour of Php5. Since that discussion took place over 3 months ago, I was urged to create a new thread.

I'm just taking my first tentative steps into PHP, and all the books I have cover PHP4.

Today, I took delivery of SitePoint's new book on no-nonsense XML web development - which states that it only explains use of PHP5 as a parser because it has Simple XML.

I am mortified. My web host only runs php4.3.1 So exploring XML is something I'm not going to be able to follow up for the foreseeable future, particularly as I'm not inclined to go down a Javascript route.

Please don't just tell me to change hosts. In many respects, the host I have now is at least reliable.

And treat this as a bit of a grumble, although it would have been nice if SitePoint had put something about PHP5 in the title of the book.

Sue

[kyberfabrikken]

Javascript ? What does that have to do with it ?

Anyway - PHP4's support for XML is quite limited, which is probably why it isn't covered in sitepoints book. The only reliable xml-parser for PHP4 is expat, which can be tough to work with.

Maybe this could be helpful : http://www.phppal.com/xml/doc.php

[skeeterbug]

Hello

I found a thread which discussed whether to abandon php4 in favour of Php5. Since that discussion took place over 3 months ago, I was urged to create a new thread.

I'm just taking my first tentative steps into PHP, and all the books I have cover PHP4.

Today, I took delivery of SitePoint's new book on no-nonsense XML web development - which states that it only explains use of PHP5 as a parser because it has Simple XML.

I am mortified. My web host only runs php4.3.1 So exploring XML is something I'm not going to be able to follow up for the foreseeable future, particularly as I'm not inclined to go down a Javascript route.

Please don't just tell me to change hosts. In many respects, the host I have now is at least reliable.

And treat this as a bit of a grumble, although it would have been nice if SitePoint had put something about PHP5 in the title of the book.

Sue

sue, i won't tell you to change hosts, however, i will tell you that i have heard from reliable people that a2hosting.com is good service and they continually update their software.

i have a decent host now, but i will be moving everything to a2hosting shortly b/c i'm learning ruby on rails and they have the current version of my database - postgresql. not to mention they are current on php5, too.

php4 has sucky xml "support". even the early versions of php didn't do so well at some things.

you can still earn xml, however, you will need to set up the latest software on a home computer.

here is a set of pretty thorough tutorials to do this... of course, make sure you install the latest and greatest software an not the versions in the tutorial if they are outdated.

http://www.geocities.com/operationsengineer1/

i also started a thread on sitepoint to share what i've learned about xml using small and simple examples. using the DOM isn't intuitive or easy, especially with all the outdated tutorials on the net. it is such a pain, i'm convinced the acronym DOM has a dual meaning...

anyway, here's the thread...

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=354632

if you learn xslt, please do share what you learn on the thread - using the same simple example format, of course.

if your webhost hangs on to old software, all this new knowledge won't get you very far.

that's why i am changing hosts. but you don't have to...

[suehutton]

Thank you for your helpful replies guys. And the recommendation of a good host is always worth its weigh in gold.

Sue

[joflow]

Thank you for your helpful replies guys. And the recommendation of a good host is always worth its weigh in gold.

Sue

Try dreamhost.

They always have some specials (like 1 year hosting for $20 or something like that) and they support PHP 5 and Ruby on Rails.

[MystaMax]

if you are just trying to pratice, I say build locally with xampp from apache friends. Then you could have php 5 running, and if you need to switch back to php4 its available to you with xampp.