Free PHP Currency Conversion

I spent quite a while recently looking for a way to convert currency online. I thought, "There must be a free currency conversion API or XML or something!" But all I found for over an hour was silly solutions that either cost $60 a month or didn't do what I wanted. All I wanted was a simple XML file that would tell me the current exchange rates. Guess what, THERE IS ONE! And here it is:

http://www.ecb.int/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml

This is the official exchange rate document published in XML format by the European Central Bank free for public consumption :) It gives all the reference rates in comparison to the Euro, so you just have to find what you want and do a little math. All you have to do is load this document into your favorite XML parser, and read the elements you need! I used PHP to get the exchange, which looked something like this:

 

function getRateFor($currency) { 
	//Load the reference rates published by the European Central Bank
	$sXML = simplexml_load_file("http://www.ecb.int/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml");
 	//Find the currency rates we want
	foreach($sXML->Cube->Cube->Cube as $rate)
	{
		if((string) $rate['currency'] == "USD") $USD = (string) $rate['rate'];
		if((string) $rate['currency'] == $currency) $CUR = (string) $rate['rate'];
	}
 	
	return $CUR/$USD;
}  
//Use Example:
$PriceInDollars = 100;
$PriceInPounds = getRateFor("GBP")*$PriceInDollars

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Of course I've removed a bit of error checking for simplification :)