Generating sitemap.xml file using the list of files in a directory by reading URL

Generate XML with XMLWriter instead of concatenating markup strings

XMLWriter handles XML escaping for URLs and produces well-formed markup. Avoid making the sitemap world-writable with chmod(..., 0777); give the PHP process only the permissions it actually needs.

<?php
$writer = new XMLWriter();
$writer->openMemory();
$writer->startDocument('1.0', 'UTF-8');
$writer->startElement('urlset');
$writer->writeAttribute('xmlns', 'https://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9');

foreach ($pdo->query('SELECT url, dt FROM file_dtl ORDER BY url') as $row) {
    $writer->startElement('url');
    $writer->writeElement('loc', $row['url']);
    if (!empty($row['dt'])) {
        $writer->writeElement('lastmod', $row['dt']);
    }
    $writer->endElement();
}

$writer->endElement();
$writer->endDocument();

$target = __DIR__ . '/sitemap.xml';
if (file_put_contents($target, $writer->outputMemory(), LOCK_EX) === false) {
    throw new RuntimeException('Unable to write sitemap.xml');
}
?>

We have seen how to generate the list of files present inside a directory by using file handling functions. We have also seen how we can store the URL of the file with title and date of last modified in a mysql table. Now using this information we can generate a sitemap.xml file where we will list the entire URL by collecting them from the table.
As for the required format of sitemap and to keep it simple we will be using the minimum required information i.e. the URL only to generate the sitemap.xml file. There is some optional information which can be added and that can be discussed separately.
Here is a standard format of sitemap.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="https://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">   <url>

      <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>

      <lastmod>2013-01-01</lastmod>

      <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>

      <priority>0.7</priority>

   </url>

</urlset>

In the above code the required data is URL and other data are optional . So we will use this data only to generate our xml file.
Like our previous example of storing data in mysql table , we will use z_db1.php ( read about z_db1.php file at connect to table ) to connect to MySQL database. We have used PDO query to get the records from table. Then we have used the file write functions to crate and write the content to our sitemap.xml file. Here is the complete code.

<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 3.2//en">
<html>
<head>
<title>Reading data from MySQL and generating sitemap XML file</title>
</head>
<body>

<?Php
include "z_db1.php";

//// Starting of xml file string ///
$body_content="<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> n
<urlset xmlns="https://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">n
"; // Store some text to enter inside the file
/////Reading from  MySQL table //////

$sql="select url from file_dtl";
foreach ($dbo->query($sql) as $row) {
$body_content.="<url><loc>$row[url]</loc></url>n";
}
////// End of reading MySQL table //////
$body_content.="</urlset>"; // last part of  the xml file
//// writing the content to xml file ////

$file_name="sitemap.xml";               // file name
$fp = fopen ($file_name, "w"); 
// Open the file in write mode, if file does not exist then it will be created.
fwrite ($fp,$body_content);          // entering data to the file
fclose ($fp);                        // closing the file pointer
chmod($file_name,0777);
echo "Please check $file_name file ";
?>
</body>
</html>

Why to store data in MySQL table

As you can understand we can also create xml file by reading the files present inside the directory without storing them in a table. The main advantage of storing them in a table is we can set the priority , update schedule etc manually from an admin area for each file and then with that data generate a sitemap.xml file. Storing the file details in a table also helps us in planning further improvement to content by reading title, descriptions and keywords with H1 tags etc.

This way it can be part of a complete content management script.

File Checking if file exists before deleting
PHP

Subhendu Mohapatra

Author & Instructor at plus2net

I write and maintain practical tutorials on Python, PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, jQuery, and web development at plus2net. The tutorials focus on clear explanations, working examples, and code that readers can test and adapt while learning.

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Generating sitemap.xml file by reading data from a directory.

Generate XML with XMLWriter instead of concatenating markup strings

Why to store data in MySQL table

Subhendu Mohapatra