Are there any common pitfalls to be aware of when using SimpleXML to generate HTML tables from XML data in PHP?

One common pitfall when using SimpleXML to generate HTML tables from XML data in PHP is that special characters in the XML data may not be properly escaped, leading to HTML rendering issues or potential security vulnerabilities. To avoid this, it is important to properly escape special characters before outputting them in the HTML table. 

<?php
$xml = <<<XML
<data>
    <row>
        <name>John Doe</name>
        <age>30</age>
        <city>New York</city>
    </row>
</data>
XML;

$table = '<table>';
$xmlData = simplexml_load_string($xml);

foreach ($xmlData->row as $row) {
    $table .= '<tr>';
    foreach ($row as $key => $value) {
        $table .= '<td>' . htmlspecialchars($value) . '</td>';
    }
    $table .= '</tr>';
}

$table .= '</table>';

echo $table;
?>

Keywords

SimpleXML HTML tables XML data PHP pitfalls

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