PHP Counter Improvement

Question

Currently I'm displaying a news feed from an XML file and using a counter to limit the number of news articles that are displayed. But I'm unsure if this is the best way to do it.

Here is my code.

<?php
function get_news($feed) {

$xml = new SimpleXmlElement(uwe_get_file($feed));
$counter = 0;
foreach ($xml->channel->item as $item) {
    echo '<a href="' . $item->link . '" target="_blank">' . $item->title . '</a><br />' . '<i>' . $item->description . '</i>' . '<strong>' . $item->pubDate . '</strong>' . '<br />' . '<br />';
    ++$counter;
    if ($counter == 5) {
        break;
    }
}
}

?>

Any suggestions on how I could improve this counter?

Answer 1

Assuming standard key values (0-based integers). You could change the loop to:

for($i=0;$i<5;$i++)
{
    $item = $xml->channel->item[$i];
    echo '<a href="' . $item->link . '" target="_blank">' . $item->title . '</a><br />' . '<i>' . $item->description . '</i>' . '<strong>' . $item->pubDate . '</strong>' . '<br />' . '<br />';
}

But I can't see it performing any better, just less code.

Answer 2

That's a perfectly good and valid way of doing it. Personally, I'd write $counter++ rather than ++$counter, but that's just my personal preference.

Answer 3

If you use a for loop you could get rid of the if($counter == 5) check:

function get_news($feed) {

   $xml = new SimpleXmlElement(uwe_get_file($feed));
   $count = count($xml->channel->item);
   for ($x = 0; ($x < $count && $x <= 5); $x++) {
     echo '<a href="' . $xml->channel->item[$x]->link . '" target="_blank">' . $xml->channel->item[$x]->title . '</a><br />' . '<i>' . l->channel->item[$x]->description . '</i>' . '<strong>' . l->channel->item[$x]->pubDate . '</strong>' . '<br />' . '<br />';
    }
 }