PHP SimpleXML: Function load_string

PHP Version: PHP 5

Description

Sometimes it is required to convert a String( represents a well-formed XML String) into a simpleXML object. Once you have the string, you can turn it into a simpleXML object using the simplexml_load_string() function.

simplexml_load_string -- Interprets a string of XML into an object         

Usage:

objectsimplexml_load_string ( string data [, string class_name])

This function will take the well-formed xml string data and return an object with properties containing the data held within the xml document. If any errors occur, it returns FALSE.

Example:

Try reading an XML string with the simplexml_load_string() function first. All you need to do is supply a string to the function. And once you have your simpleXML object, you can use the objects asXML() function to display it as formatted XML.

The PHP code is:

          <?php

$xml_obj_string = <<<XML

<Persons>

     <Person>

          <First>Test1n</First>

          <Title>Mr.</Title>

          <Last>Test2</Last>

          <Phone>1111</Phone>

          <Email>Test1@yahoo.com</Email>

     </Person>

     <Person>

          <First>Test3</First>

          <Title>Mr.</Title>

          <Last>Test3</Last>

          <Phone>1111</Phone>

          <Email>test2@yahoo.com</Email>

     </Person>

</Persons>

XML;

$xml_object = simplexml_load_string($xml_obj_string);

echo $xml_object->asXML();

//var_dump($xml_object);

          ?>

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Persons>

     <Person>

          <First>Test1n</First>

          <Title>Mr.</Title>

          <Last>Test2</Last>

          <Phone>1111</Phone>

          <Email>Test1@yahoo.com</Email>

     </Person>

     <Person>

          <First>Test3</First>

          <Title>Mr.</Title>

          <Last>Test3</Last>

          <Phone>1111</Phone>

          <Email>test2@yahoo.com</Email>

     </Person>

</Persons>

You can also use var_dump() function to see the content as an array.             

var_dump($xml_object);