How to Detect if an XML Element is Empty using DOMDocument in PHP?

Question

If I delete an element inside an element, and if its the last element, then the parent element gets shortened to an empty element.

Example:

Start: <element><child1>Inner HTML</child1><child2>Inner HTML</child2></element>

I delete Child2 and I get: <element><child1>Inner HTML</child1></element>

I delete Child1 and I get: <element/>

Now I want that to not happen or at least a way to detect if the element is empty so I can replace it. How can I do that using DOMDocument in PHP.

Thanks...

What do you mean by "want that to not happen?" What do you want to have happen instead? What code are you using to delete the other elements? — Explosion Pills
– Explosion Pills, Commented Dec 29, 2011 at 14:47
Code should be definitely provided with this explanation. If you want to detect is element empty or not you could simply after deleting or before check php.net/manual/en/domnode.haschildnodes.php — Eugene
– Eugene, Commented Dec 29, 2011 at 14:49
actually, i found the error... it was due to something else. sorry for posting this question... — Arjun Bajaj
– Arjun Bajaj, Commented Dec 29, 2011 at 15:11

Gumbo · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-29 14:48:35Z

5

You should be able to determine whether an element is empty by inspecting the length of the list of child nodes:

$isEmpty = $elem->childNodes->length === 0;

Note that not only elements can be child nodes of another element but also CDATA sections, comments, and plain text.

answered Dec 29, 2011 at 14:48

Gumbo

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1 Comment

actually, i found the error... it was due to something else. sorry for posting this question... but thanks for your answer...

Gary · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-03 19:43:33Z

3

Borrowing from the PHP manual:

count($elem->children());

So, to check if empty:

$isEmpty = count($elem->children()) === 0 ? true : false;

answered Mar 3, 2013 at 19:43

Gary

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