SimpleXMLElement::children

(PHP 5 >= 5.0.1, PHP 7)

SimpleXMLElement::children — Finds children of given node

Description

public SimpleXMLElement SimpleXMLElement::children ([ string $ns [, bool $is_prefix = false ]] )

This method finds the children of an element. The result follows normal iteration rules.

Note: SimpleXML has made a rule of adding iterative properties to most methods. They cannot be viewed using var_dump() or anything else which can examine objects.

Parameters

ns: An XML namespace.
is_prefix: If is_prefix is TRUE, ns will be regarded as a prefix. If FALSE, ns will be regarded as a namespace URL.

Return Values

Returns a SimpleXMLElement element, whether the node has children or not.

Changelog

Version	Description
5.2.0	The optional parameter `is_prefix` was added.

Examples

Example #1 Traversing a children() pseudo-array


<?php
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(
'<person>
 <child role="son">
  <child role="daughter"/>
 </child>
 <child role="daughter">
  <child role="son">
   <child role="son"/>
  </child>
 </child>
</person>');

foreach ($xml->children() as $second_gen) {
    echo ' The person begot a ' . $second_gen['role'];

    foreach ($second_gen->children() as $third_gen) {
        echo ' who begot a ' . $third_gen['role'] . ';';

        foreach ($third_gen->children() as $fourth_gen) {
            echo ' and that ' . $third_gen['role'] .
                ' begot a ' . $fourth_gen['role'];
        }
    }
}
?>

The above example will output:

The person begot a son who begot a daughter; The person
begot a daughter who begot a son; and that son begot a son

Example #2 Using namespaces


<?php
$xml = '<example xmlns:foo="my.foo.urn">
  <foo:a>Apple</foo:a>
  <foo:b>Banana</foo:b>
  <c>Cherry</c>
</example>';

$sxe = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);

$kids = $sxe->children('foo');
var_dump(count($kids));

$kids = $sxe->children('foo', TRUE);
var_dump(count($kids));

$kids = $sxe->children('my.foo.urn');
var_dump(count($kids));

$kids = $sxe->children('my.foo.urn', TRUE);
var_dump(count($kids));

$kids = $sxe->children();
var_dump(count($kids));
?>

int(0)
int(2)
int(2)
int(0)
int(1)

Notes

SimpleXMLElement::children() returns a node object no matter if the current node has children or not. Use count() on the return value to see if there are any children. As of PHP 5.3.0, SimpleXMLElement::count() may be used instead.

User Contributed Notes

aero

8 years ago


Here's a simple, recursive, function to transform XML data into pseudo E4X syntax ie. root.child.value = foobar



<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);



$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(

'<Patriarch>

   <name>Bill</name>

   <wife>

     <name>Vi</name>

   </wife>

   <son>

     <name>Bill</name>

   </son>

   <daughter>

     <name>Jeri</name>

     <husband>

       <name>Mark</name>

     </husband>

     <son>

       <name>Greg</name>

     </son>

     <son>

       <name>Tim</name>

     </son>     

     <son>

       <name>Mark</name>

     </son>     

     <son>

       <name>Josh</name>

         <wife>

           <name>Kristine</name>

         </wife> 

         <son>

           <name>Blake</name>

         </son>

         <daughter>

           <name>Liah</name>

         </daughter>

     </son>

   </daughter>

</Patriarch>');



RecurseXML($xml);



function RecurseXML($xml,$parent="")

{

   $child_count = 0;

   foreach($xml as $key=>$value)

   {

      $child_count++;     

      if(RecurseXML($value,$parent.".".$key) == 0)  // no childern, aka "leaf node"

      {

         print($parent . "." . (string)$key . " = " . (string)$value . "<BR>\n");        

      }     

   }

   return $child_count;

}



?>



The output....



.name = Bill

.wife.name = Vi

.son.name = Bill

.daughter.name = Jeri

.daughter.husband.name = Mark

.daughter.son.name = Greg

.daughter.son.name = Tim

.daughter.son.name = Mark

.daughter.son.name = Josh

.daughter.son.wife.name = Kristine

.daughter.son.son.name = Blake

.daughter.son.daughter.name = Liah

mrdaniellee at live dot com

6 years ago


use this If you want to view the HTML as well as data.



normal dumps display the parsed versions of HTML.

This code displays the HTML as Text in a Text Area, and also display all other a data along side as an array 



perfect for debugging (xml with html).



Try This Code:



<?php

$xml  = simplexml_load_file($url);



function xml2array_parse($xml){

     foreach ($xml->children() as $parent => $child){

         $return["$parent"] = xml2array_parse($child)?xml2array_parse($child):"$child";

     }

     return $return;

 } 

 

 print "<pre><textarea style=\"width:200%;height:100%;\">";

 print_r(xml2array_parse($xml));

 print "</textarea></pre>";

?>

Sebastian

10 years ago


Just a quick addition:



If you need to access a child node which contains a dash, you need to encapsulate it with {""}.



For example:

<?php

foreach ($domain->domain-listing as $product) {

}

?>



The example above doesn't work because of the dash. But instead you need to use:

<?php

foreach ($domain->{"domain-listing"} as $product) {

}

?>



At least for me the second example works perfectly fine.

coldshine1 at rambler dot ru

5 years ago


This is my recursive simple function to parse XML with attributes.

<?php
function ParseXML($node, &$parent=array(), $only_child=true) {         

        //Current node name
        $node_name = $node->getName();
          
        //Let's count children
        $only_child = true;
        if($node->count() > 1 ) $only_child = false;

        //If there is no child, then there may be text data
        if($only_child){
            $content="$node";            
            if (strlen($content)>0) $parent['content']=$content;
        }
        
        //Get attributes of current node
        foreach ($node->attributes() as $k=>$v) {
            $parent['@attributes'][$k]="$v";
        }
       
        //Get children
        $count = 0;
        foreach ($node->children() as $child_name=>$child_node) {
            if(!$only_child) //If there are siblings then we'll add node to the end of the array
                LGServerPVR::ParseXML($child_node, $parent[$node_name][$child_name][$count], $only_child);
            else 
                LGServerPVR::ParseXML($child_node, $parent[$node_name][$child_name], $only_child);
            $count++;
        }
        
        return $parent;  
        //(c) c01d[s]h!nE 10.12.2010       
    }

?>

taylorbarstow at that google mail thingy

10 years ago


Sometimes you actually want an array, not a pseudo array.   This is especially true when you aren't dealing with attributes (i.e., you just want the array of child nodes).



Do like this:



<?php

$children = $sxml->xpath('child::node()');

?>



The reason you might want this is to be able to use array functions like array_shift, array_pop, etc.  This is especially true when you are writing recursive functions.  Simplexml works really well in iterative programming, but if you try to implement recursion it gets ugly.

Andrew Rose (rose dot andrew at gmail dot com)

11 years ago


The example below shows the basic use of depth-first recursion to span the xml tree.



This is coded for the command line, and it prints out the original sentance above and then the copy cat sentence it creates itself for comparison, which as you will see; this example is slightly off from, I'll leave it upto you to resolve this issue.



All in all I personaly think xml and recursion go hand in hand, so if you don't understand recursion but know xml and want to use php to manipulate xml you will need to learn about recursion at some point.



<?php

$xml = simplexml_load_string(

'<person>

 <child role="son">

  <child role="daughter"/>

 </child>

 <child role="daughter">

  <child role="son">

   <child role="son"/>

  </child>

 </child>

</person>');



function recurse($child)

 {

   foreach($child->children() as $children) {

     echo ' who begot a '.$children['role'];

     recurse($children); 

   }

    return;

 }



foreach($xml->children() as $children) {

 echo 'The person begot a '.$children['role'];

  recurse($children, 0);

 echo '; ';

}



echo "\n";

echo 'The person begot a son who begot a daughter; The person begot a daughter who begot a son; and that son begot a son'."\n";



?>

Anonymous

5 years ago


Here's my xml-to-array routine. Unlike many of the other comments here, this one takes namespaces into account.

<?php

class XmlArray {

  public function load_dom ($xml) {
    $node=simplexml_import_dom($xml);
    return $this->add_node($node);
  }
  
  public function load_string ($s) {
    $node=simplexml_load_string($s);
    return $this->add_node($node);
  }
  
  private function add_node ($node, &$parent=null, $namespace='', $recursive=false) {
 
    $namespaces = $node->getNameSpaces(true);
    $content="$node";
    
    $r['name']=$node->getName();
    if (!$recursive) {
      $tmp=array_keys($node->getNameSpaces(false));
      $r['namespace']=$tmp[0];
      $r['namespaces']=$namespaces;
    }
    if ($namespace) $r['namespace']=$namespace;
    if ($content) $r['content']=$content;
    
    foreach ($namespaces as $pre=>$ns) {
      foreach ($node->children($ns) as $k=>$v) {
        $this->add_node($v, $r['children'], $pre, true);
      }
      foreach ($node->attributes($ns) as $k=>$v) {
        $r['attributes'][$k]="$pre:$v";
      }
    }
    foreach ($node->children() as $k=>$v) {
      $this->add_node($v, $r['children'], '', true);
    }
    foreach ($node->attributes() as $k=>$v) {
      $r['attributes'][$k]="$v";
    }
    
    $parent[]=&$r;
    return $parent[0];
    
  }

}

?>

rodmen at gmail dot com

6 years ago


Transform xml to array php



<?php

function xml2phpArray($xml,$arr){

    $iter = 0;

        foreach($xml->children() as $b){

                $a = $b->getName();

                if(!$b->children()){

                        $arr[$a] = trim($b[0]);

                }

                else{

                        $arr[$a][$iter] = array();

                        $arr[$a][$iter] = xml2phpArray($b,$arr[$a][$iter]);

                }

        $iter++;

        }

        return $arr;

}



$Array = simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents('myfile.xml'));

print_r(xml2phpArray($Array,array()));

?>

no-one

10 years ago


For anyone who hasn't read Sterling Hughe's article (http://www.zend.com/php5/articles/php5-simplexml.php):



<?php

$xml_document =<<<EOT

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<root xmlns:foo="http://example.com">

  <foo:bar>baz</foo:bar>

</root>

EOT;



$xml_document = simplexml_load_xml($xml_document);



$foo_ns_bar = $xml_document->children('http://example.com');



echo $foo_ns_bar->bar[0]; // prints 'baz'

?>

thetazzbot at gmail dot com

4 years ago


Ok so say you have this xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<!DOCTYPE nitf
PUBLIC "-//IPTC-NAA//DTD NITF 3.1//EN"
       "http://www.nitf.org/site/nitf-documentation/nitf-3-1.dtd">
<nitf>
  <head>
    <docdata management-status="embargoed">
      <!--data/2011/08/23/parties/doc4e53aa5783cca930694817.txt-->
      <doc-id id-string="doc4e53aa5783cca930694817"/>
      <date.release norm="20110823T000000"/>
      <key-list/>
    </docdata>
    <pubdata type="web" position.section="parties" position.sequence="0"/>
  </head>

-- snip --

If you need to access the nodes named "like.this" such as the date.release above, here is how I did it:

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xhtml);
 echo (string)$xml->head->docdata->{"date.release"}["norm"];

Took me a while to figure that one out ;)

transglobe at gmx dot de

8 years ago


I made a slightly differnt approch towards the RecurseXML function. Beeing hungry I had problems with the code, as it did just overwrite two <maincourse>s. So here is what I did:



<?php



$xml = new SimpleXMLElement(

'<meal>

   <type>Lunch</type>

   <time>12:30</time>

   <menu>

     <entree>salad</entree>

     <maincourse>

        <part>ships</part>

        <part>steak</part>

     </maincourse>

     <maincourse>

        <part>fisch</part>

        <part>rice</part>

     </maincourse>

     <maincourse>

        <part>wine</part>

        <part>cheese</part>

     </maincourse>

   </menu>

</meal>');



$vals = array();

RecurseXML($xml,$vals);



foreach($vals as $key=>$value)

  print("{$key} = {$value}<BR>\n");



function RecurseXML($xml,&$vals,$parent="") {



  $childs=0;

  $child_count=-1; # Not realy needed.

  $arr=array();

        foreach ($xml->children() as $key=>$value) {

                if (in_array($key,$arr)) {

                        $child_count++;

                } else {

                        $child_count=0;

                }

                $arr[]=$key;

                $k=($parent == "") ? "$key.$child_count" : "$parent.$key.$child_count";

                $childs=RecurseXML($value,$vals,$k);

                if ($childs==0) {

                        $vals[$k]= (string)$value;

                }

        }



  return $childs;

}



?>

Output is like this:

type.0 = Lunch

time.0 = 12:30

menu.0.entree.0 = salad

menu.0.maincourse.0.part.0 = ships

menu.0.maincourse.0.part.1 = steak

menu.0.maincourse.0 =

menu.0.maincourse.1.part.0 = fisch

menu.0.maincourse.1.part.1 = rice

menu.0.maincourse.1 =

menu.0.maincourse.2.part.0 = wine

menu.0.maincourse.2.part.1 = cheese

menu.0.maincourse.2 =

menu.0 = 



(Not beautiful, but it solved my case...)

Anonymous

7 years ago


for XML namespaces such as <dc:creator> in RSS feeds use



<?php

    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);

    $item = $xml->channel[0]->item[0];

    $dc = $item->children("http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/");

    echo $dc->creator;

?>

crescentfreshpot at yahoo dot com

8 years ago


Just a warning that the iterable returned from children() contains the '@attributes' key, which is "invisible" during a foreach but can be seen if using a different construct, such as list()=each() or casting to an array before iterating w/ foreach.

zyxwvu at users dot sourceforge dot net

12 years ago


File:



<category>

  <item>text</item>

  <bold>text</bold>

  <item>text</item>

  <item>text</item>

  <mark>text</mark>

  <bold>text</bold>

</category>



If you want to get also names of the tags, you can use this loop layout:



<?php

foreach($category -> children() as $name => $node){

  echo $name.'<br/>';

}

?>

SimpleXMLElement::children

Description

Parameters

Return Values

Changelog

Examples

Notes

See Also

User Contributed Notes