PHP - simplexml_load_string doesn't work as expected

Question

When converting xml to object, everything seems fine according to print_r($result);. But if I use $result->title it returns object instead of string and when looping $result->documents it gets really strange..

$xml = '<return>
  <id>65510</id>
  <title>SMART</title>
  <info/>
  <documents>
    <name>file_1.pdf</name>
    <path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_1.pdf</path>
  </documents>
  <documents>
    <name>file_2.pdf</name>
    <path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_2.pdf</path>
  </documents>
  <documents>
    <name>file_3.pdf</name>
    <path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_3.pdf</path>
  </documents>
</return>';

$result = simplexml_load_string($xml);
print_r($result);   /* returns:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [id] => 65510
    [title] => SMART
    [info] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
        )

    [documents] => Array
        (
            [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [name] => file_1.pdf
                    [path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_1.pdf
                )

            [1] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [name] => file_2.pdf
                    [path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_2.pdf
                )

            [2] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [name] => file_3.pdf
                    [path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_3.pdf
                )

        )

)
*/
$_VALUE['title'] = $result->title;
print_r($_VALUE);   /* returns:

Array
(
    [title] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [0] => SMART
        )

)
*/

foreach ($result->documents as $key=>$value) {
echo $key . "<br/>";
}  /* returns:

documents 
documents 
documents 

instead of returning:
1
2
3
*/

I need $result->title to return string and $result->documents to be an array with indexes 1,2,3.

Rejoanul Alam · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-18 04:09:26Z

1

There are difference between print_r and echo in this context. Instead Print try echo

echo (string) $result->title;

It will work and output as SMART

and array

$p = 1;
foreach ($result->documents as $value) {
  echo $value->name . "<br/>";
  //for key
  echo $p++.'</br>';
}

edited Oct 18, 2016 at 4:09

answered Oct 18, 2016 at 3:51

Rejoanul Alam

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3 Comments

Totallama Over a year ago

Ok, but I use these values in PHPMailer and it throws error: Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'Serialization of 'SimpleXMLElement' is not allowed'

Rejoanul Alam Over a year ago

ok then you have to type case data as string because internally they are all SimpleXMLElement.So it should like echo (string) $result->title;

Totallama Over a year ago

And what about the array?

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