Question

This is somewhat what my XML looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<citizen> 
  <military> 
    <rank-points>62750</rank-points> 
    <stars>1</stars> 
    <total-damage>18243</total-damage> 
    <rank>Commander</rank> 
    <fight-count>0</fight-count> 
  </military> 
</citizen> 

Now, I want to import the stuff inside the tag “rank-points” with PHP using

$rank = $xml->{'military'}->rank-points;

But, because the XML tag has a “-” in it’s name, it won’t work. The result is always 0.

Answer 1

Using this :

$rank = $xml->{'military'}->rank-points;

PHP will actually :

• search for $xml->{'military'}->rank
• and try to substract the value of the constant points to that value
  • if the contant doesn’t exist, it’ll use the string value "points".

Trying to execute your code, you should actually get a notice, indicating what I said :

Notice: Use of undefined constant points - assumed 'points'

To solve that problem, try adding {''} around the name of your tag :

$rank = $xml->{'military'}->{'rank-points'};

This way, PHP will know that rank-points is one thing — and not a substraction.