Question

Here is my code:

$string = <<<XML
<?xml version='1.0'?> 
<test>
 <testing>
  <lol>hello</lol>
  <lol>there</lol>
 </testing>
</test>
XML;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($string);
echo "All of the XML:\n";
print_r $xml;
echo "\n\nJust the 'lol' array:";
print_r $xml->testing->lol;

Output:

All of the XML:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [testing] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [lol] => Array
                (
                    [0] => hello
                    [1] => there
                )

        )

)




Just the 'lol' array:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [0] => hello
)

Why does it output only the [0] instead of the whole array? I dont get it.

Answer 1

It’s because you have two lol elements. In order to access the second you need to do this:

$xml->testing->lol[1];

this will give you “there”

$xml->testing->lol[0];

Will give you “hello”

The children() method of the SimpleXMLElement will give you an object containing all the children of an element for example:

$xml->testing->children();

will give you an object containing all the children of the “testing” SimpleXMLElement.

If you need to iterate, you can use the following code:

foreach($xml->testing->children() as $ele)
{
    var_dump($ele);
}

There is more information about SimpleXMLElement here:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.simplexmlelement.php