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SimpleXML handles the most common XML tasks and
leaves the rest for other extensions.
What is SimpleXML?
SimpleXML is new in PHP 5. It is an easy way of getting an
element's attributes and text, if you know the XML document's
layout.
Compared to DOM or the Expat parser, SimpleXML just takes a
few lines of code to read text data from an element.
SimpleXML converts the XML document into an object, like
this:
- Elements - Are converted to single attributes of the
SimpleXMLElement object. When there's more than one element
on one level, they're placed inside an array
- Attributes - Are accessed using associative arrays,
where an index corresponds to the attribute name
- Element Data - Text data from elements are converted to
strings. If an element has more than one text node, they
will be arranged in the order they are found
SimpleXML is fast and easy to use when performing basic tasks
like:
- Reading XML files
- Extracting data from XML strings
- Editing text nodes or attributes
However, when dealing with advanced XML, like namespaces, you
are better off using the Expat parser or the XML DOM.
Installation
As of PHP 5.0, the SimpleXML functions are part of the PHP
core. There is no installation needed to use these functions.
Using SimpleXML
Below is an XML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<note>
<to>Tove</to>
<from>Jani</from>
<heading>Reminder</heading>
<body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>
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We want to output the element names and data from the XML
file above.
Here's what to do:
- Load the XML file
- Get the name of the first element
- Create a loop that will trigger on each child node,
using the children() function
- Output the element name and data for each child node
Example
<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_file("test.xml");
echo $xml->getName() . "<br />";
foreach($xml->children() as $child)
{
echo $child->getName() . ": " . $child . "<br />";
}
?>
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The output of the code above will be:
note
to: Tove
from: Jani
heading: Reminder
body: Don't forget me this weekend!
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More PHP SimpleXML
For more information about the PHP SimpleXML functions, visit
our PHP SimpleXML Reference.
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