SVG Image into SVG

[smuglet]

Hi there,

Is there a way to load a SVG for placement into a loaded SVG. An image inside an image.

Ideally not using xlink:href. Would very much like the produced SVG self contained.

Thanks.

[meyfa]

Yes, that's most definitely possible.

<svg> nodes can contain other <svg> nodes. As such, you can simply load image A, load image B, and then add B as a child node of A.

For example:

<?php
use SVG\SVG;

$a = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/a.svg');
$b = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/b.svg');

$a->getDocument()->addChild($b->getDocument());

echo $a;

File 'a.svg':

<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
    <rect x="10" y="10" width="5" height="20" />
</svg>

File 'b.svg':

<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
    <circle cx="40" cy="20" r="8" />
    <circle cx="80" cy="20" r="8" />
</svg>

Script output (formatted):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <rect x="10" y="10" width="5" height="20" />
    <svg viewBox="0 0 100 100">
        <circle cx="40" cy="20" r="8" />
        <circle cx="80" cy="20" r="8" />
    </svg>
</svg>

[meyfa]

Note that if you need the output without the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> line (for embedding in an HTML document), you can pass false to SVG::toXMLString() like so:

<?php
use SVG\SVG;

$a = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/a.svg');
$b = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/b.svg');

$a->getDocument()->addChild($b->getDocument());

echo $a->toXMLString(false);

Moreover, if you need to place image B somewhere deeper inside image A (inside a <g> element, for example), you can do that, too. You would just need to navigate to the target node and call addChild() on that. For example:

<?php
use SVG\SVG;

$a = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/a.svg');
$b = SVG::fromFile(__DIR__.'/b.svg');

$groups = $a->getDocument()->getElementsByTagName("g");
$g = $groups[0];
$g->addChild($b->getDocument());

echo $a->toXMLString(false);

I hope I could answer your question (albeit a bit late). If not, feel free to reopen this issue.