Recursively search through a directory (and it's children directories) to find Markdown files and convert the list of files and their content and into an XML document.

recursive-md.php

<?php
#
# INSPIRATION FROM Nick Dunn (in the Symphony CMS forum)
# "Convert a Directory of Markdown Text Files for Dynamic XML Datasource Use"
# http://getsymphony.com/discuss/thread/60701/#position-2
#
# AND FROM Stack Overflow
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8545010/php-reading-first-2-lines-of-file-into-variable-and-cylce-through-subfolders/8545451#8545451
#


#
# configuration
#

$path = '.';
$fileFilter = '~\.(md|markdown)$~';
$pattern = '~^(?:Title: (.*))?(?:(?:\r\n|\n)(?:Description: (.*)))?~u';

#
# main
#

# init result array (the nice one)
$result = array();

# recursive iterator for files
$iterator = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
               new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($path, FilesystemIterator::KEY_AS_PATHNAME | FilesystemIterator::CURRENT_AS_FILEINFO), 
               RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST);

foreach($iterator as $path => $info)
{
    # filter out files that don't match
    if (!preg_match($fileFilter, $path)) continue;

    # get first two lines
    try
    {
        for
        (
            $maxLines = 2,
            $lines = '',
            $file = $info->openFile()
            ; 
            !$file->eof() && $maxLines--
            ; 
            $lines .= $file->fgets()
        );
        $lines = rtrim($lines, "\n");

        if (!strlen($lines)) # skip empty files 
            continue;
    }
    catch (RuntimeException $e)
    {
        continue; # files which are not readable are skipped.
    }

    # parse md file
    $r = preg_match($pattern, $lines, $matches);
    if (FALSE === $r)
    {
        throw new Exception('Regular expression failed.');
    }
    list(, $title, $description) = $matches + array('', '', '');

    # grow result array
    $result[dirname($path)][] = array($path, $title, $description);
}

#
# output
#

// ensure output is sent as XML
header('Content-Type: text/xml');
echo('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>');

include_once('includes/lib/markdown.php');

$dirCounter = 0;

echo('<!-- '.dirname(__FILE__).' -->');
echo('<files>');

foreach ($result as $name => $dirs)
{

    printf("<directory name=\"%s\" path=\"%s\">\n", basename($name), $name);
    foreach ($dirs as $entry)
    {
        list($path, $title, $description) = $entry;
        $text = file_get_contents($path);
        /*
        printf("<a href='%s'>%s from line 1 of Markdown %s</a> <br/>\n%s\n\n", 
                htmlspecialchars($path), 
                htmlspecialchars($title),               
                htmlspecialchars(basename($path)),
                htmlspecialchars($description)
              );
        */
        
        echo('<file path="' . $path . '" name="' . basename($path) . '" last-modified="' . date("Y-m-dTH:i:s", filemtime($path)) . '">' . Markdown($text) . '</file>');

    }
    echo('</directory>');
}

echo('</files>');