Question

I have the following XML file loaded into php simplexml.

<adf>
<prospect>
<customer>
<name part="first">Bob</name>
<name part="last">Smith</name>
</customer>
</prospect>
</adf>

using

$customers = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstring); 

This will return “Bob” but how do I return the last name?

echo $customers->prospect[0]->customer->contact->name;

Answer 1

You can access the different <name> elements by number, using array-style syntax.

$names = $customers->prospect[0]->customer->name;

echo $names[0]; // Bob
echo $names[1]; // Smith

In fact, you’re already doing it for the <prospect> element!

See also Basic SimpleXML Usage in the manual.

---

If you want to select elements based on some criteria, then XPath is the tool to use.

$customer   = $customers->prospect[0]->customer;
$last_names = $customer->xpath('name[@part="last"]'); // always returns an array
echo $last_names[0]; // Smith