#45253 [Opn]: SimpleXML interface inconsistent

ID: 45253 User updated by: erudd at netfor dot com Reported By: erudd at netfor dot com Status: Open Bug Type: SimpleXML related Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 5.2.6 New Comment: OK.. that code works fine on PHP 5.2.4, 5.2.5, and 5.2.6. However if you don't predefine the element and update it's contents it was expecting it to be "escaped". Which is fixed on my fresh build of 5.2.6. (though wasn't clearly documented in the changelog (bug #44478)) (I have multiple version of PHP, that I'm unifying up to current). Still, this behavior is not documented in the documentation. Should I file a new bug on the documentation to have it updated? or just switch this one to "Add* methods for simpleXML need documentation updated to show that input needs to be xml entity encoded"? Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-06-13 15:50:00] maito dot gai at gmail dot com That's not SimpleXML's normal behaviour, and I couldn't reproduce it on PHP 5.2.6-pl1-gentoo (cli) (built: May 26 2008 02:58:50) + libxml 2.6.31 Check out your PHP version and libxml version, perhaps you're unknowingly running an older release. Reproduce code: --------------- $sxml=new SimpleXMLElement('<test></test>'); $sxml->child1 = 'One & Two'; echo $sxml->child1, "\n"; $sxml->child1 = 'One &amp; Two'; echo $sxml->child1, "\n"; Actual result: -------------- One & Two One &amp; Two ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-06-13 01:40:27] erudd at netfor dot com However when I do $xml->child = 'One & Two'; it does not work it results in echo (string)$xml->child; printing "One "; As I tried doing that to see if it was just the "function" being ODD or the whole SimpleXML. Basically this behavior has made simpleXML useless to me now. I either have to use the standard DOM interface, use XMLWriter (which I ended up rewriting the code that had this issue to use XMLWriter instead). OR write my own wrapper class around simpleXML that does the same behavior with respect to escaping that the rest of the XML APIs in PHP do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-06-13 00:50:48] maito dot gai at gmail dot com You can have simplicity or completeness, but you can't have them both at the same time. SimpleXML offers simplicity through its magic method ($sxml->child) and completeness through addChild(). If you don't want to bother with escaping, use $sxml->child1 = 'One & Two'; If you need to bypass escaping, use $sxml->addChild('child1', 'One &amp; Two'); Without addChild(), or if addChild() was identical to the magic method, it would be impossible to use XML entities, eg &#160; would need to be replaced by the actual character if the document's encoding. And if that character was not available in that encoding (or charset, rather) then it would simply be impossible to use. That's why addChild()'s behaviour is both desirable and needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-06-12 21:46:33] erudd at netfor dot com The XMLWriter extension escapes my input for me as expected instead of requiring me to escape the input first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-06-12 21:31:52] erudd at netfor dot com Description: ------------ Referencing bug #44458 Where in the documentation does it state that the strings must be escaped when setting attributes or assigning values to children. I can find it nowhere in the documentation, nor any examples where you show that you "must escape text content" before entering it into the attribute or text content of an element. Also this behavior is inconsistent behavior as when you fetch the data it is NOT escaped. So why should I need to escape the data when putting it in? This makes simpleXML not so simple as I have to perform extra "unexpected" work while storing data into the xml document. Which I do not have to do with the DOM extension. Consistency should be high priority in this.. I should expect to retrieve the same value out that I put in. the SimpleXML class should handle encoding and decoding data for me so "I" don't have to think about it. Reproduce code: --------------- $sxml=new SimpleXMLElement('<test></test>'); $sxml->addChild('child1','One & Two'); echo "Test 1:".(string)$sxml->child1."\n"; $sxml->addChild('child2','One &amp; Two'); echo "Test 2:".(string)$sxml->child2."\n"; $sxml->addChild('child3'); $sxml->child3 = 'One &amp; Two'; echo "Test 3:".(string)$sxml->child3."\n"; Expected result: ---------------- Test 1:One & Two Test 2:One &amp; Two Test 3:One &amp; Two Actual result: -------------- Test 1:One Test 2:One & Two Test 3:One & Two ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=45253&edit=1