Question

Here is the XML:

<Routes>
    <Route type="source">
        <Table>
            <Tablename>incoming</Tablename>
            <Fields>
                <Fieldsname ref="description" name="Route Name">description</Fieldsname>
                <Fieldsname name="CID Match">cidnum</Fieldsname>
                <Fieldsname name="DID Match">extension</Fieldsname>
                <Fieldsname ref="dest">destination</Fieldsname>
            </Fields>
        </Table>

    </Route>
</Routes>

Then my instantiation of it in PHP:

$doc    = new SimpleXMLElement('routingConfig.xml', null, true);

print_r($doc->Route[0]) shows this:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [type] => source
        )

    [comment] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
        )

    [Table] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [Tablename] => incoming
            [comment] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                )

            [Fields] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                (
                    [Fieldsname] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => description
                            [1] => cidnum
                            [2] => extension
                            [3] => destination
                        )

                    [comment] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                                (
                                )

                            [1] => SimpleXMLElement Object
                                (
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

Notice how the root value has the @attributes array. Why doesn’t $doc->Routes[0]->Table->Fields->Fieldsname have @attributes? I realize I can get it via attributes(), but is there a way to make it be included in $doc?

EDIT
Apparently print_r() doesn’t display every value in the array/object, exploring all children etc. Or perhaps SimpleXMLElement doesn’t return it unless requested (seems like it should all be stored in $doc). If you do print_r($doc->Route[0]->Table->Fields->Fieldsname[0]);, it returns

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [ref] => description
            [name] => Route Name
        )

    [0] => description
)

Which shows the data I am looking for. But if I do a print_r($doc->Route[0]->Table->Field); the data does not appear.

Answer 1

The SimpleXMLElement object does some very advanced things in PHP. It implements a lot of the “magic” hooks that PHP provides so that it works in things like foreach() and is meant to be treated like a “black box”. So because of that, using print_r() on it will give you misleading and incomplete information. You just can’t rely on print_r() (or var_dump()) on a SimpleXMLElement object.

The way to debug the structure in a SimpleXMLElement is to simply look for the elements you’re after: things like isset($xmlnode->child) work, for instance. So is_array($doc->Route[0]->Table->Fields->Fieldsname) will be true.