eXeLearning .elp / .elpx Parser for PHP

Simple parser for eXeLearning project files.

Features | Installation | Usage

Features

ELPParser supports the two eXeLearning project families described in the upstream format docs:

• Legacy .elp projects from eXeLearning 2.x based on contentv3.xml
• Modern .elpx projects from eXeLearning 3+ based on content.xml and ODE 2.0
• Modern .elp exports that also use content.xml
• Detection of eXeLearning major version when the package exposes it
• Heuristic detection of likely v4-style .elpx packages using root content.dtd
• Extraction of normalized metadata, strings, pages, idevices and asset references
• Safe archive extraction with ZIP path traversal checks
• JSON serialization support

For more information, visit the documentation.

Requirements

• PHP 8.0+
• Composer
• zip extension
• simplexml extension

Installation

composer require exelearning/elp-parser

Usage

Basic Parsing

use Exelearning\ELPParser;

try {
    $parser = ELPParser::fromFile('/path/to/project.elpx');

    $version = $parser->getVersion();
    $title = $parser->getTitle();
    $description = $parser->getDescription();
    $author = $parser->getAuthor();
    $license = $parser->getLicense();
    $language = $parser->getLanguage();

    foreach ($parser->getStrings() as $string) {
        echo $string . "\n";
    }
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Error parsing project: " . $e->getMessage();
}

Format Inspection

use Exelearning\ELPParser;

$parser = ELPParser::fromFile('/path/to/project.elpx');

echo $parser->getSourceExtension();      // elp | elpx
echo $parser->getContentFormat();        // legacy-contentv3 | ode-content
echo $parser->getContentFile();          // contentv3.xml | content.xml
echo $parser->getContentSchemaVersion(); // 2.0 for modern ODE packages
echo $parser->getExeVersion();           // raw upstream version string when present
echo $parser->getResourceLayout();       // none | content-resources | legacy-temp-paths | mixed
var_dump($parser->hasRootDtd());         // true when content.dtd exists at archive root
var_dump($parser->isLikelyVersion4Package());

Pages and Assets

$pages = $parser->getPages();
$visiblePages = $parser->getVisiblePages();
$blocks = $parser->getBlocks();
$idevices = $parser->getIdevices();
$pageTexts = $parser->getPageTexts();
$visiblePageTexts = $parser->getVisiblePageTexts();
$firstPageText = $parser->getPageTextById($pages[0]['id']);
$teacherOnlyIdevices = $parser->getTeacherOnlyIdevices();
$hiddenIdevices = $parser->getHiddenIdevices();
$assets = $parser->getAssets();
$images = $parser->getImages();
$audioFiles = $parser->getAudioFiles();
$videoFiles = $parser->getVideoFiles();
$documents = $parser->getDocuments();
$assetsDetailed = $parser->getAssetsDetailed();
$orphanAssets = $parser->getOrphanAssets();
$metadata = $parser->getMetadata();

In modern content.xml packages, assets usually live under paths such as content/resources/.... Older projects and some transitional exports may still reference legacy layouts such as files/tmp/.... The parser exposes this through getResourceLayout().

Export JSON

$json = $parser->exportJson();
$parser->exportJson('/path/to/output.json');

Extract Project Files

$parser->extract('/path/to/destination');

Version Compatibility

The parser distinguishes between project format and eXeLearning version:

• getContentFormat() tells you whether the package uses legacy contentv3.xml or modern content.xml
• getVersion() reports the detected eXeLearning major version
• In practice this means:
  • eXeLearning 2.x legacy .elp => version 2
  • modern ODE-based .elp => usually version 3
  • .elpx packages with root content.dtd are treated as likely v4-style packages and currently report version 4
  • otherwise modern ODE-based packages default to version 3

This distinction matters because some projects created with newer eXeLearning builds still identify themselves internally with exe_version=3.0, so strict v4 detection is not always possible from the package alone. For that reason, the library combines explicit metadata with format heuristics:

• .elpx
• content.xml
• root content.dtd
• optionally content/resources/... as the modern resource layout

Error Handling

The parser throws exceptions for:

• Missing files
• Invalid ZIP archives
• Unsupported project layouts
• XML parsing failures
• Unsafe archive entries during extraction

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.