PHP SimpleXML Introduction

The SimpleXML extension of PHP provides set of functions to convert XML to an object that can be processed with normal property selectors and array iterators. Support for SimpleXML in PHP5 is automatically turned on; there is no need to include any additional extensions.

It includes functions for working with XML documents that make common operations fairly easy, such as the ability to take a String and convert it to an XML formatted document and display it. The primary advantage is that the XML document becomes an object that can be processed like other objects in PHP, with elements, attributes, and their data accessible using normal object operations.

The functions include:

• simplexml_load_file: this function takes a file path as an argument, and if the contents of the file are well-formed XML will load the contents as an object.
• simplexml_load_string: this function takes a string as an argument, and the string should be well-formed XML. Converts the string to an object.
• simplexml_import_dom: this function takes a node from a DOM (Document Object Model) document and turns it into a simple xml node.
• simplexml_element -> asXML: this function returns a well-formed XML string from a simpleXML object.
• Simplexml_element -> attributes: this function provides the attributes and values defined within a well-formed string of XML.
• simplexml_element -> children:this function provides the child element of an element.
• simplexml_element -> xpath: this function runs an XPATH query on a simpleXML node.