PHP 7.0.6 Released

    simplexml_load_string

    (PHP 5, PHP 7)

    simplexml_load_string — Interprets a string of XML into an object

    Description

    SimpleXMLElement simplexml_load_string ( string $data [, string $class_name = "SimpleXMLElement" [, int $options = 0 [, string $ns = "" [, bool $is_prefix = false ]]]] )

    Takes a well-formed XML string and returns it as an object.

    Parameters

    data

    A well-formed XML string

    class_name

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

    options

    Since PHP 5.1.0 and Libxml 2.6.0, you may also use the options parameter to specify additional Libxml parameters.

    ns

    Namespace prefix or URI.

    is_prefix

    TRUE if ns is a prefix, FALSE if it's a URI; defaults to FALSE.

    Return Values

    Returns an object of class SimpleXMLElement with properties containing the data held within the xml document, 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.

    Errors/Exceptions

    Produces an E_WARNING error message for each error found in the XML data.

    Tip

    Use libxml_use_internal_errors() to suppress all XML errors, and libxml_get_errors() to iterate over them afterwards.

    Examples

    Example #1 Interpret an XML string

    <?php
    $string     = <<<XML
    <?xml version='1.0'?> 
    <document>
     <title>Forty What?</title>
     <from>Joe</from>
     <to>Jane</to>
     <body>
      I know that's the answer -- but what's the question?
     </body>
    </document>
    XML;

    $xml = simplexml_load_string($string);

    print_r($xml);
    ?>

    The above example will output:

    SimpleXMLElement Object
(
  [title] => Forty What?
  [from] => Joe
  [to] => Jane
  [body] =>
   I know that's the answer -- but what's the question?
)

    At this point, you can go about using $xml->body and such.

    See Also

    User Contributed Notes

    rowan dot collins at gmail dot com
    7 years ago
    There seems to be a lot of talk about SimpleXML having a "problem" with CDATA, and writing functions to rip it out, etc. I thought so too, at first, but it's actually behaving just fine under PHP 5.2.6

    The key is noted above example #6 here:
    http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples.php

    "To compare an element or attribute with a string or pass it into a function that requires a string, you must cast it to a string using (string). Otherwise, PHP treats the element as an object."

    If a tag contains CDATA, SimpleXML remembers that fact, by representing it separately from the string content of the element. So some functions, including print_r(), might not show what you expect. But if you explicitly cast to a string, you get the whole content.

    <?php
    $xml     = simplexml_load_string('<foo>Text1 &amp; XML entities</foo>');
    print_r($xml);
    /*
    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
        [0] => Text1 & XML entities
    )
    */

    $xml2 = simplexml_load_string('<foo><![CDATA[Text2 & raw data]]></foo>');
    print_r($xml2);
    /*
    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
    )
    */
    // Where's my CDATA?

    // Let's try explicit casts
    print_r( (string)$xml );
    print_r( (string)$xml2 );
    /*
    Text1 & XML entities
    Text2 & raw data
    */
    // Much better
    ?>
    ascammon at hotmail dot com
    5 years ago
    I had a hard time finding this documented, so posting it here in case it helps someone:

    If you want to use multiple libxml options, separate them with a pipe, like so:

    <?php
    $xml     = simplexml_load_string($string, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA | LIBXML_NOBLANKS);
    ?>
    Diego Araos, diego at klapmedia dot com
    5 years ago
    A simpler way to transform the result into an array (requires json module).

    <?php
    function object2array($object) { return @json_decode(@json_encode($object),1); }
    ?>

    Example:
    <?php
    $xml_object    =simplexml_load_string('<SOME XML DATA');
    $xml_array=object2array($xml_object);
    ?>
    Bob
    6 years ago
    Here is my simple SimpleXML wrapper function.
    As far as I can tell, it does the same as Julio Cesar Oliveira's (above).
    It parses an XML string into a multi-dimensional associative array.
    The second argument is a callback that is run on all data (so for example, if you want all data trimmed, like Julio does in his function, just pass 'trim' as the second arg).
    <?php
    function unserialize_xml($input, $callback = null, $recurse = false)
    /* bool/array unserialize_xml ( string $input [ , callback $callback ] )
    * Unserializes an XML string, returning a multi-dimensional associative array, optionally runs a callback on all non-array data
    * Returns false on all failure
    * Notes:
        * Root XML tags are stripped
        * Due to its recursive nature, unserialize_xml() will also support SimpleXMLElement objects and arrays as input
        * Uses simplexml_load_string() for XML parsing, see SimpleXML documentation for more info
    */
    {
            // Get input, loading an xml string with simplexml if its the top level of recursion
            $data = ((!$recurse) && is_string($input))? simplexml_load_string($input): $input;
            // Convert SimpleXMLElements to array
            if ($data instanceof SimpleXMLElement) $data = (array) $data;
            // Recurse into arrays
            if (is_array($data)) foreach ($data as &$item) $item = unserialize_xml($item, $callback, true);
            // Run callback and return
            return (!is_array($data) && is_callable($callback))? call_user_func($callback, $data): $data;
    }
    ?>
    bojan
    8 years ago
    As was said before don't use var_dump() or print_r() to see SimpleXML object structure as they do not returns always what you expect.
    Consider the following:

    <?php

    // data in xml
    $xml_txt = '
    <root>
      <folder ID="65" active="1" permission="1"><![CDATA[aaaa]]></folder>
      <folder ID="65" active="1" permission="1"><![CDATA[bbbb]]></folder>
    </root>'    ;

    // load xml into SimpleXML object
    $xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_txt, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA);//LIBXML_NOCDATA LIBXML_NOWARNING

    // see object structure
    print_r($xml);

    /* this prints
    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
        [folder] => Array
            (
                [0] => aaaa
                [1] => bbbb
            )

    )
    */

    // but...
    foreach ($xml->folder as $value){
            print_r($value);
    }
    /* prints complete structure of each folder element:
    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
        [@attributes] => Array
            (
                [ID] => 65
                [active] => 1
                [permission] => 1
            )

        [0] => aaaa
    )

    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
        [@attributes] => Array
            (
                [ID] => 65
                [active] => 1
                [permission] => 1
            )

        [0] => bbbb
    )

    */
    ?>
    nbijnens at servs dot eu
    8 years ago
    Please note that not all LIBXML options are supported with the options argument.

    For instance LIBXML_XINCLUDE does not work. But there is however a work around:

    <?php
    $xml     = new DOMDocument();
    $xml->loadXML ($XMLString);
               
    $xml->xinclude();
    $xml = simplexml_import_dom($xml);

    ?>
    Anonymous
    4 years ago
    Use libxml_disable_entity_loader() to restrict loading of external files.  See http://www.idontplaydarts.com/2011/02/scanning-the-internal-network-using-simplexml/
    AllenJB
    3 years ago
    <?php
    $xml     = json_decode(json_encode((array) simplexml_load_string($string)), 1);
    ?>

    A reminder that json_encode attempts to convert data to UTF-8 without specific knowledge of the source encoding. This method can cause encoding issues if you're not working in UTF-8.
    Julio Cesar Oliveira
    7 years ago
    <?php
    function XML2Array ( $xml )
    {
            $array = simplexml_load_string ( $xml );
            $newArray = array ( ) ;
            $array = ( array ) $array ;
        foreach (     $array as $key => $value )
        {
                $value = ( array ) $value ;
                $newArray [ $key] = $value [ 0 ] ;
        }
            $newArray = array_map("trim", $newArray);
      return     $newArray ;
    }
    ?>
    Mark Omohundro, ajamyajax.com
    7 years ago
    How about a recursive function to reduce the xml hard-coding in your apps?  Here is my simple listing routine as an example:

    <?php
    function list_xml($str) {
          $root = simplexml_load_string($str);
          list_node($root);
    }

    function     list_node($node) {
      foreach (    $node as $element) {
        echo     $element. "\n";
        if (    $element->children()) {
          echo     "<br/>";
              list_node($element);
        }
      }
    }
    ?>
    kyle at codeincarnate dot com
    8 years ago
    A looked through a lot of the sample code for reading XML files with CDATA, but they didn't work out that well for me.  However, I found that the following piece of code worked perfectly for reading through a file using lots of CDATA.

    <?php
    $article_string     = file_get_contents($path);
    $article_string = preg_replace_callback('/<!\[CDATA\[(.*)\]\]>/', 'filter_xml', $article_string);
    $article_xml = simplexml_load_string($article_string); 

    function     filter_xml($matches) {
        return     trim(htmlspecialchars($matches[1]));
    }

    ?>
    artistan at gmail dot com
    10 months ago
    Here is my update to Bob's simple SimpleXML wrapper function.
    I noticed his version would turn an empty SimpleXMLElement into an empty array.

    <?php
            /**
         * http://php.net/manual/en/function.simplexml-load-string.php#91564
         *
         * bool/array unserialize_xml ( string $input [ , callback $callback ] )
         * Unserializes an XML string, returning a multi-dimensional associative array, optionally runs a callback on all non-array data
         * Returns false on all failure
         * Notes:
         * Root XML tags are stripped
         * Due to its recursive nature, unserialize_xml() will also support SimpleXMLElement objects and arrays as input
         * Uses simplexml_load_string() for XML parsing, see SimpleXML documentation for more info
         *
         * @param $input
         * @param null $callback
         * @param bool $recurse
         * @return array|mixed
         *
         */
            function unserialize_xml($input, $callback = null, $recurse = false)
        {
                // Get input, loading an xml string with simplexml if its the top level of recursion
                $data = ((!$recurse) && is_string($input))? simplexml_load_string($input): $input;
                // Convert SimpleXMLElements to array
                if ($data instanceof SimpleXMLElement){
                if(!empty(    $data)){
                        $data = (array) $data;
                } else {
                        $data = '';
                }
            }
                // Recurse into arrays
                if (is_array($data)) foreach ($data as &$item) $item = unserialize_xml($item, $callback, true);
                // Run callback and return
                return (!is_array($data) && is_callable($callback))? call_user_func($callback, $data): $data;
        }
    ?>
    meustrus
    11 months ago
    Be careful checking for parse errors. An empty SimpleXMLElement may resolve to FALSE, and if your XML contains no text or only contains namespaced elements your error check may be wrong. Always use `=== FALSE` when checking for parse errors.

    <?php

    $xml     = <<<XML
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <ns1:Root xmlns:ns1="http://example.com/custom">
    <ns1:Node>There's stuff here</ns1:Node>
    </ns1:Root>
    XML;

    $simplexml = simplexml_load_string($xml);

    // This prints "Parse Error".
    echo ($simplexml ? 'Valid XML' : 'Parse Error'), PHP_EOL;

    // But this prints "There's stuff here", proving that
    // the SimpleXML object was created successfully.
    echo $simplexml->children('http://example.com/custom')->Node, PHP_EOL;

    // Use this instead:
    echo ($simplexml !== FALSE ? 'Valid XML' : 'Parse Error'), PHP_EOL;

    ?>

    See:

    https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=31045
    https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=30972
    https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=69596
    jeff at creabilis dot com
    6 years ago
    If you want to set the charset of the outputed xml, simply set the encoding attribute like this :

    <?php simplexml_load_string('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><xml/>'); ?>

    The generated xml outputed by $xml->asXML will containt accentuated characters like 'é' instead of &#xE9;.

    Hope this help
    Julio Cesar Oliveira
    7 years ago
    The XML2Array func now Recursive!

    <?php
    function XML2Array ( $xml , $recursive = false )
    {
        if ( !     $recursive )
        {
                $array = simplexml_load_string ( $xml ) ;
        }
        else
        {
                $array = $xml ;
        }
       
            $newArray = array () ;
            $array = ( array ) $array ;
        foreach (     $array as $key => $value )
        {
                $value = ( array ) $value ;
            if ( isset (     $value [ 0 ] ) )
            {
                    $newArray [ $key ] = trim ( $value [ 0 ] ) ;
            }
            else
            {
                    $newArray [ $key ] = XML2Array ( $value , true ) ;
            }
        }
        return     $newArray ;
    }
    ?>
    javalc6 at gmail dot com
    7 years ago
    I wanted to convert an array containing strings and other arrays of the same type into a simplexml object.

    Here is the code of the function array2xml that I've developed to perform this conversion. Please note that this code is simple without any checks.

    <?php
    function array2xml($array, $tag) {

        function     ia2xml($array) {
                $xml="";
            foreach (    $array as $key=>$value) {
                if (    is_array($value)) {
                        $xml.="<$key>".ia2xml($value)."</$key>";
                } else {
                        $xml.="<$key>".$value."</$key>";
                }
            }
            return     $xml;
        }

        return     simplexml_load_string("<$tag>".ia2xml($array)."</$tag>");
    }

    $test['type']='lunch';
    $test['time']='12:30';
    $test['menu']=array('entree'=>'salad', 'maincourse'=>'steak');

    echo     array2xml($test,"meal")->asXML();
    ?>
    SmartD
    7 years ago
    A small 'n nice function to extract an XML and return it as an array. If there is a bug, please let me know here. I testet it for my purposes and it works.

    <?php

    public function extractXML($xml) {
           
    if (!(    $xml->children())) {
        return (string)     $xml;
    }
           
    foreach (    $xml->children() as $child) {
            $name=$child->getName();
        if (    count($xml->$name)==1) {
                $element[$name] = $this->extractXML($child);
        } else {
                $element[][$name] = $this->extractXML($child);
        }
    }

    return     $element;   
    }

    // you can call it this way

    $xml = false;

    $xml = @simplexml_load_string($xmlstring);

    // 1)

    if ($xml) {
          $array = extractXML($xml);
    }  else {
          $array = false;
    }

    // 2)

    if ($xml) {
          $array[$xml->getName()] = extractXML($xml);
    }  else {
          $array = false;
    }

    ?>
    paulyg76 at NOSPAM dot gmail dot com
    8 years ago
    Be careful using nested SimpleXML objects in double quoted strings.

    <?php
    $xmlstring     = '<root><node>123</node><foo><bar>456</bar></foo></root>';

    $root = simplexml_load_string($xmlstring);

    echo     "Node is: $root->node"; // Works: Node is 123
    echo "Bar is: $root->foo->bar"; // Doesn't work, outputs: Bar is: ->bar
    // use curly brackets to fix
    echo "Bar is: {$root->foo->bar}"; // Works: Bar is 456

    ?>
    amir_abiri at ipcmedia dot com
    8 years ago
    It doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, but you can refer to an element "value" for the purpose of changing it like so:

    <?php
    $xml     = simplexml_load_string('<root><number>1</number></root>');
    echo     $xml->asXml(). "\n\n";

    $xml->number->{0} = $xml->number->{0} + 1;

    echo     $xml->asXml();
    ?>

    echos:
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root><number>1</number></root>

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root><number>2</number></root>

    However, this only works with a direct assignment, not with any of the other operators:

    <?php
    $xml     = simplexml_load_string('<root><number>1</number></root>');
    echo     $xml->asXml(). "\n\n";

    $xml->number->{0} += 1;
    // Or:
    $xml->number->{0}++;

    echo     $xml->asXml();
    ?>

    Both of the above cases would result in:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root><number>1</number></root>

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root><number>1<0/></number></root>
    hattori at hanso dot com
    8 years ago
    Theres a problem with the below workaround when serializing fields containing html CDATA. For any other content type then HTML try to modfiy function parseCDATA.
    Just add these lines before serializing.
    This is also a workaround for this bug http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=42001

    <?PHP
    if(strpos($content, '<![CDATA[')) {
       function     parseCDATA($data) {
          return     htmlentities($data[1]);
       }
           $content = preg_replace_callback(
              '#<!\[CDATA\[(.*)\]\]>#',
              'parseCDATA',
              str_replace("\n", " ", $content)
       );
    }
    ?>
    Pedro
    8 years ago
    Attention:

    simplexml_load_string has a problem with entities other than (&lt;, &gt;, &amp;, &quot; and &apos;).

    Use numeric character references instead!
    php at teamhirsch dot com
    9 years ago
    It's worth noting that in the example above, $xml->body will actually return an object of type SimpleXMLElement, not a string, e.g.

    SimpleXMLElement Object (
           [0] => this is the text in the body tag
      ) 

    If you want to get a string out of it you must explicitly cast it using (string) or double quotes, or pass $xml->body (or whatever attribute you want to access) to any function that returns a string, such as urldecode() or trim().
    m dot ament at mailcity dot com
    9 years ago
    Warning:

    The parsing of XML-data will stop when reaching character 0.
    Please avoid this character in your XML-data.
    mindpower
    9 years ago
    A simple extension that adds a method for retrieving a specific attribute:

    <?php
    class simple_xml_extended extends SimpleXMLElement
    {
        public    function        Attribute($name)
        {
            foreach(    $this->Attributes() as $key=>$val)
            {
                if(    $key == $name)
                    return (string)    $val;
            }
        }

    }

    $xml = simplexml_load_string('
    <xml>
      <dog type="poodle" owner="Mrs Smith">Rover</dog>
    </xml>'    , 'simple_xml_extended');

    echo     $xml->dog->Attribute('type');

    ?>

    outputs 'poodle'

    I prefer to use this technique rather than typecasting attributes.
    h
    9 years ago
    seems like simplexml has a line-length restriction - fails if a largeish XML doc with no linebreaks is passed as a string or file.

    h
    roy dot walter at nospam dot brookhouse dot co dot uk
    9 years ago
    simplexml provides a neat way to do 'ini' files. Preferences for any number of users can be held in a single XML file having elements for each user name with user specific preferences as attributes of child elements. The separate <pref/>'s could of course be combined as multiple attributes of a single <pref/> element but this could get unwieldy.

    In the sample code below the makeXML() function uses the simplexml_load_string function to generate some XML to play with and the readPrefs() function parses the requested users preferences into an array.

    <?php
    function makeXML() {

    $xmlString = <<<XML
    <preferences>
        <johndoe>
            <pref color="#FFFFFF"/>
            <pref size="14"/>
            <pref font="Verdana"/>
        </johndoe>
        <janedoe>
            <pref color="#000000"/>
            <pref size="16"/>
            <pref font="Georgia"/>
        </janedoe>   
    </preferences>
    XML;

    return     simplexml_load_string($xmlString);

    }
    function     readPrefs($user, $xml) {
       
        foreach(    $xml->$user as $arr);
                $n = count($arr);
               
        for(    $i=0;$i<$n;$i++) {
            foreach(    $xml->$user->pref[$i]->attributes() as $a=>$b) {
                    $prefs[$a] = (string)$b;
            }
        }
           
            print_r($prefs);
    }

    readPrefs('johndoe', makeXML());

    ?>
    paul at santasoft dot com
    9 years ago
    If you have PHP > 5.1 and LibXML > 2.6, use this function call to have simplexml convert CDATA into plain text.

    simplexml_load_string($xmlstring, 'SimpleXMLElement', LIBXML_NOCDATA);

    Too bad, so sad with PHP < 5.1.
    Maciek Ruckgaber <maciekrb at gmai dot com>
    10 years ago
    after wondering around some time, i just realized something (maybe obvious, not very much for me). Hope helps someone to not waste time as i did :-P

    when you have something like:

    <?php
    $xmlstr     = <<<XML
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <double xmlns="http://foosite.foo/">2328</double>
    XML;
    ?>

    you will have the simpleXML object "transformed" to the text() content:

    <?php
    $xml     = simplexml_load_string($xmlstr);
    echo     $xml; // this will echo 2328  (string)
    ?>
    igor kraus
    11 years ago
    A simple way to merge two SimpleXML objects.

    <?php
    /**
    * Pumps all child elements of second SimpleXML object into first one.
    *
    * @param    object      $xml1   SimpleXML object
    * @param    object      $xml2   SimpleXML object
    * @return   void
    */
    function simplexml_merge (SimpleXMLElement &$xml1, SimpleXMLElement $xml2)
    {
            // convert SimpleXML objects into DOM ones
            $dom1 = new DomDocument();
            $dom2 = new DomDocument();
            $dom1->loadXML($xml1->asXML());
            $dom2->loadXML($xml2->asXML());

            // pull all child elements of second XML
            $xpath = new domXPath($dom2);
            $xpathQuery = $xpath->query('/*/*');
        for (    $i = 0; $i < $xpathQuery->length; $i++)
        {
                // and pump them into first one
                $dom1->documentElement->appendChild(
                    $dom1->importNode($xpathQuery->item($i), true));
        }
            $xml1 = simplexml_import_dom($dom1);
    }

    $xml1 = simplexml_load_string('<root><child>child 1</child></root>');
    $xml2 = simplexml_load_string('<root><child>child 2</child></root>');
    simplexml_merge($xml1, $xml2);
    echo(    $xml1->asXml());
    ?>

    Will output:
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root>
        <child>child 1</child>
        <child>child 2</child>
    </root>
    cellog at php dot net
    11 years ago
    simplexml does not simply handle CDATA sections in a foreach loop.

    <?php
    $sx     = simplexml_load_string('
    <test>
    <one>hi</one>
    <two><![CDATA[stuff]]></two>
    <t>
      <for>two</for>
    </t>
    <multi>one</multi>
    <multi>two</multi>
    </test>'    );
    foreach((array)     $sx as $tagname => $val) {
        if (    is_string($val)) {
               // <one> will go here
            } elseif (is_array($val)) {
               // <multi> will go here because it happens multiple times
            } elseif (is_object($val)) {
              // <t> will go here because it contains tags
          // <two> will go here because it contains CDATA!
            }
    }
    ?>

    To test in the loop, do this

    <?php
    if (count((array) $val) == 0) {
            // this is not a tag that contains other tags
            $val = '' . $val;
            // now the CDATA is revealed magically.
    }
    ?>
    hattori at hanso dot com
    8 years ago
    If you want to serialize and unserialize SimpleXMLElement objects for caching, you need to transform the SimpleXMLElement object into a standard class object before unserializing.
    This is only if you want to cache converted data, the functionallity of the SimpleXMLElement will not be held.

    $content = '<SomeXML....'

    $serialized = str_replace(
      array('O:16:"SimpleXMLElement":0:{}', 'O:16:"SimpleXMLElement":'),
      array('s:0:"";', 'O:8:"stdClass":'),
      serialize(simplexml_load_string($content))
    );

    $unserialized = unserialize($serialized);
    tiznull
    7 years ago
    SimpleXMLElement - Warning: unserialize() [function.unserialize]: Node no longer exists in … .php

    If you get this error from storing serialized SimpleXMLElement data then this is your fix…

    <?php

    function sxml_unserialze($str) {
    return     unserialize(str_replace(array('O:16:"SimpleXMLElement":0:{}', 'O:16:"SimpleXMLElement":'), array('s:0:"";', 'O:8:"stdClass":'), $str));
    }

    ?>
    supzero at phparts dot net
    7 years ago
    if we don't know children number. How many loop. How many key.

    <?php
    class XML {
        protected     $pointer;
        public        $degerler=array();
       
        function     loadString($string){
                $this->pointer = simplexml_load_string($string);
                    return     $this->pointer;
        }
       
        function     loadFile($file){
                $this->pointer = simplexml_load_file($file);
            return     $this->pointer;
        }
       
        function     getname(){
            return     $this->pointer->getName();
        }
        function     child(){
            return     $this->pointer->children();
        }
        function     att(){
            return     $this->pointer->attributes();
        }
        function     toArray(){
            foreach (    $this->child() as $sq){
                    $this->degerler[$this->getname()][$sq->getname()][][] = $sq; // How many key
                }
            return;
        }
       
    }
    ?>
    nospam at qool dot com
    7 years ago
    simplexml doesn't appear to like long attributes. I have tried passing it a valid xhtml document but the url in the anchor tag was causing simplexml to generate an error.
    youx_free_fr
    8 years ago
    While needing to add an xml subtree to an existing simplexml object, I noticed that simplexml_load_string fails with strings like
    <emptynode></emptynode>

    I needed to use dom instead of simplexml to bypass this problem and work with any kind of xml strings.
    lists at cyberlot dot net
    10 years ago
    While you can't add new elements to a SimpleXML object you can however add new attributes
    <?php
    $string     = '<doc channel="chat"><test1>Hello</test1></doc>';
    $xml = simplexml_load_string($string);
    $xml->test1['sub'] = 'No';
    echo     $xml->asXML();
    ?>

    Will return output
    <doc channel="chat"><test1 sub="No">Hello</test1></doc>
    lb at bostontech dot net
    4 years ago
    please note that:

    <?
    $data_array = (array) simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
    ?>

    will only convert the root element to an array, where as the child elements remain XML objects.

    To prove this, try returning a value N objects deep by association.  Then try the same exercise using something like the object2array example below. (Which works great).
    thejhereg at gmail dot com
    5 years ago
    "simplexml_load_string() : Entity: line #: parser error : Comment not terminated"

    On the off chance you see this error and you're pulling your hair out over it, simplexml can't seem to correctly parse XML comment tags if the comment contains "--".

    Is silly and likely won't happen very often -- but sometimes it does. ;-)
    greg dot steffensen at spamless dot richmond dot edu
    12 years ago
    Simplexml's simplicity can be deceptive.  Simplexml elements behave either as objects or strings, depending on the context in which they're used (through overloading of the __toString() method, I assume).  Statements implying conversion to string treat them as strings, while assignment operations treat them as objects.  This can lead to unexpected behavior if, for example, you are trying to compare the values of two Simplexml elements.  The expected syntax will not work.  To force conversion to strings, just "typecast' whatever Simplexml element you're using.  For example:

    <?php
    $s     = simplexml_load_string('<foo>43</foo> <bar>43</bar>');

    // Evaluates to false by comparing object IDs instead of strings
    ($s->foo == $s->bar);

    // Evaluates to true
    ((string)$s->foo == (string)$s->bar);
    ?>

    [Ed. Note: Changed from quotes to casts because casts provide a quicker and more explicit conversion than do double quotes.]
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