REA XML Parser and WordPress

A while back I was asked to display a directory full of REAXML files on a WordPress site. To accomplish this I created a class which would convert the XML files into an associative array and then a plugin to use wp_insert_post() for each property. realestate.com.au accepts property data in their proprietary XML format as a means to import properties into your account on their website. Due to this feature many businesses are already producing REAXML documents from their custom software or another XML Provider, with this REAXML parser we are able to easily parse the data into our website.

Creating the plugin

/*
Plugin Name: Property Inserter
Plugin URI: http://devblog.com.au
Description: A plugin to insert properties from REAXML files
Version: 1.0
Author: Ben Dougherty
Author URI: http://devblog.com.au
*/

Scheduling the Importer

We want the importer to run periodically, In this case every hour. To achieve this we register a WordPress scheduled event when the plugin is activated. We also have a deactivation hook to remove and scheduled events when the plugin is deactivated.

  register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'db_importer_activation');
  register_deactivation_hook(__FILE__, 'db_importer_deactivation');
  add_action('db_importer_run_hourly', 'db_importer_process_properties');	

/*
 * Schedules our events on plugin activation
 */
function db_importer_activation() {
  wp_schedule_event( current_time( 'timestamp' ), 'hourly', 'db_importer_run_hourly');
}

/*
 * Remove any scheduled events on plugin deactivation
 */
function db_importer_deactivation() {
  wp_clear_scheduled_hook('db_importer_run_hourly');
}

/**
 * Runs Hourly
 */
function db_importer_run_hourly() {
  db_importer_load_properties();
}

Loading the properties using our REA XML Parser

We now need to specify some defaults such as the user to attach the posts to, the category to insert the posts into and the custom post type. The REA XML parser class is included and we use the parse_directory() method to parse all of our XML files. You can see that a directory is specified to move the XML files into after processing based on if they failed or were processed successfully. You can download the REA XML parser code from github. You can see in our call to db_imoprter_insert_properties that we are only going to insert residential properties.

function db_importer_load_properties() {
  /* The location of our data directory */
  $xml_dir = "../../../data";

  /* Where our failed files will be moved */
  $failed_dir = "../../../data/failed";

  /* Where our successfully processed xml files will be moved */
  $processed_dir = "../../../data/processed";

  /* Files to exclude in our data folder */
  $excluded_data_files = array(".", "..", ".ftpquota", "processed", "failed");

  /* Residential Catgegory */
  $residential_cat = 5;

  /* My user ID */
  $user_id = 1;	

  /* Post Type */
  $post_type = "property";

  //Included our REA_XML class
  include("rea_xml/rea_xml.class.php");
  $rea = new REA_XML($debug=false); //create in debug mode

  //set some additional excluded files
  $excluded_files = array("processed", "failed", ".DS_Store", ".ftpquota");

  //parse the whole directory
  $properties = $rea->parse_directory($xml_dir, false, false, $excluded_files);

  //Insert all residential properties
  db_importer_insert_properties($properties['residential'], $residential_cat, $user_id, $post_type);	
}

Inserting the Properties

Once we have successfully loaded the properties we want to insert them all into WordPress as posts. We simply loop through the properties creating posts and inserting any custom meta data.

/**
 * Enters properties from a associative arrays WP Posts
 */
function db_importer_insert_properties($properties, $category, $user_id, $post_type) {
  $result = true;//if properties were added from this file

  if($properties) {
    if(count($properties) > 0) {
      $count = 0;
      foreach($properties as $property) {
        $title = get_property_title($property); //get title

        //setup post
        $new_post = array(
        'post_title' => $title,
        'post_content' => $property['description'],
        'post_status' => 'publish',
        'post_date' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
        'post_author' => $user_id,
        'post_type' => $post_type,
        'post_category' => array($category)
      );

      $post_id = wp_insert_post($new_post);	//insert post	
      if($post_id != 0) {
        //add metadata
        add_post_meta($post_id, "_bathrooms", esc_attr($property['features']['bathrooms']));
        add_post_meta($post_id, "_bedrooms", esc_attr($property['features']['bedrooms']));

        if(is_array($property['images'])) {
          add_post_meta($post_id, "_images", esc_attr(implode("\n", $property['images'])));	
        }
        else {
  	     feedback("Post ID was 0");
        }	

        feedback("added property $title with post_id $post_id"); //feedback
        $count++; //count
      }
      else {
        feedback("post was failed to add");
      }
    }//end loop
    feedback("Added $count properties");

    }//end count
    else {
      feedback("No properties to add.");
    }
  }
  else {
    feedback("No properties were selected");
    $result = false;
  }
  return $result;
}

I hope this code saves somebody some time.