PHP 7.0.6 Released

    simplexml_import_dom

    (PHP 5, PHP 7)

    simplexml_import_dom — Get a SimpleXMLElement object from a DOM node.

    Description

    SimpleXMLElement simplexml_import_dom ( DOMNode $node [, string $class_name = "SimpleXMLElement" ] )

    This function takes a node of a DOM document and makes it into a SimpleXML node. This new object can then be used as a native SimpleXML element.

    Parameters

    node

    A DOM Element node

    class_name

    You may use this optional parameter so that simplexml_import_dom() will return an object of the specified class. That class should extend the SimpleXMLElement class.

    Return Values

    Returns a SimpleXMLElement or FALSE on failure.

    Warning

    This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE. Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

    Examples

    Example #1 Importing DOM

    <?php
    $dom     = new DOMDocument;
    $dom->loadXML('<books><book><title>blah</title></book></books>');
    if (!    $dom) {
        echo     'Error while parsing the document';
        exit;
    }

    $s = simplexml_import_dom($dom);

    echo     $s->book[0]->title;
    ?>

    The above example will output:

    blah

    See Also

    User Contributed Notes

    brandonkirsch at perceptionilluminates dot com
    2 years ago
    simplexml_import_dom() will accept DOMNodes or other SimpleXMLElements.  This has a useful purpose if you are extending the SimpleXMLElement class and would prefer the xpath() method to return your class extension instead of basic SimpleXMLElements.  For example:

    class MySimpleXML extends SimpleXMLElement{
        public function xpath($xpath){
            $return = array();
            $simpleXmls = parent::xpath($xpath); // run SimpleXMLElement xpath, returning an array of SimpleXMLElements
            foreach($simpleXmls as $xml){
                $return[] = simplexml_import_dom($xml,'MySimpleXML'); // copy SimpleXMLElement, returning as MySimpleXML instance
            }
            return $return;
        }
    }

    Now I can create an instance of MySimpleXML, run an xpath, and get my results back as an array of MySimpleXML elements instead of the native SimpleXMLElement:

    $mySimpleXml = new mySimpleXml('<root><node/></root>');

    $array = $mySimpleXml->xpath('/root/node'); // returns array with a single MySimpleXml object
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