REST Server XML parser returns arrays with empty values when POSTing or PUTting...

I not reviewed the code but the patch does not meet drupals coding standards.

lol, I have just looked at the code and this function sucks for standards so yeah lets leave that for a different issue! So I am wondering if we actually want to keep the call the function in a recursive manner. So atm we do

foreach ($node->children() as $child) {

Why not

if ($node->count() == 0 ) { // see http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexmlelement.count.php
}
else {
  foreach ($node->children() as $child) {
  }
}

What you have looks good but continuing to following a core pattern if possible would be nice.

What I am say is don't treat your element as an exception and instead fix the outer loop so as recursion remains in all cases to grab child elements.

Here's an updated patch for 7.x-3.5

FIxed in dev, thanks

Sorry for reopening the current task, but the patch didn't work me. I tried both XML in comments #1 and #8, apart from my XMLs, but still I was getting a NULL value.
I did my tests with version 3.x-dev. The following code however worked for me:

      if (count($child->children()) > 0) {
        // if the child has children
        $att = 'is_array';
        if ($child->attributes()->$att) {
          $new_array = array();
          // recursive through <item>
          foreach($child->children() as $item) {
            // Make sure that elements with no children gets a value assigned.
            $item_keys = array_keys((array) $item);
            if (count($item_keys) == 1 && current($item_keys) === 0) {
              $new_array[] = (string) $item[0];
            }
            elseif (is_object($item)) {
              $new_array[] = (string) $item;
            }
            else {
              $new_array[] = self::unmarshalXML($item, $array[$item->getName()]);
            }
          }
        }

Let me know, if you need more informations.

Patch attached with the above code.
Thank you!

Fixed, thanks.

Hi, this recent change has broken compatibility with our incoming XML. Now instead of parsing the content child node <value/>, the array element contains only the whitespace content of the node (e.g. "\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t "). Incoming XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request>
	<type>adresse</type>
	<title>TEST</title>
	<status>1</status>
	<name>foo</name>
	<field_bar>
		<und is_array="true">
			<item>
				<value><![CDATA[rue d'enghien]]></value>
				<format/>
				<safe_value><![CDATA[rue d'enghien]]></safe_value>
			</item>
		</und>
	</field_bar>
</request>

We've been using this format for a while now. Is this still the correct format for XML requests? Thanks.

commit f5f16455805b5d16a268b1139d81376e91ba1946
Author: Kyle Browning <kylebrowning@me.com>
Date:   Thu Oct 31 00:01:03 2013 -0700

    Issue #1912842: REST Server XML parser returns arrays with empty values  when POSTing or PUTting... by gielfeldt, esbenvb

This commit included in 7.x-3.6 is breaking my site.. where my resource's update callback had been getting a nice array of entity objects, now it receives an array of empty/whitespace-only values.

Reverting this block in servers/rest_server/includes/ServicesParser.inc starting on line 67:

foreach($child->children() as $item) {
  // Make sure that elements with no children gets a value assigned.
  $item_keys = array_keys((array) $item);
  if (count($item_keys) == 1 && current($item_keys) === 0) {
    $new_array[] = (string) $item[0];
  }
  elseif (is_object($item)) {
    $new_array[] = (string) $item;
  }
  else {
    $new_array[] = self::unmarshalXML($item, $array[$item->getName()]);
  }
}

back to:

 foreach($child->children() as $item) {
   $new_array[] = self::unmarshalXML($item, $array[$item->getName()]);
 }

solves my problem.

Looks like our test coverage of XML is abysmal.

I don't have any xml cases setup, any chance I can get some help to resolve this issue?

Im happy to review patches, if nobody can help, ill move towards getting something setup next week.

In the meantime, I would suggest reverting that commit for yourself and placing using that instead of a release.

git revert f5f16455805b5d16a268b1139d81376e91ba1946

Simple patch:
replace
elseif (is_object($item)) {
in
foreach($child->children() as $item)
with
elseif (is_object($item) && ($item->count() == 0)) {

It checks whether $item has children (for example <value>).

Also I've add $array[$child->getName()] = array(); to avoid PHP Notice: Undefined index

21: services-rest_server_parse_xml_with_arrays-1912842-20.patch queued for re-testing.