#46517 [Opn->Csd]: SimpleXML inconsistent behaviour with multiple XML nodes

ID: 46517 Updated by: vrana@php.net Reported By: sites at hubmed dot org -Status: Open +Status: Closed Bug Type: Documentation problem Operating System: * PHP Version: 5CVS, 6CVS (2008-11-11) New Comment: This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient. Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2009-11-20 12:21:56] svn@php.net Automatic comment from SVN on behalf of vrana Revision: http://svn.php.net/viewvc/?view=revision&revision=291073 Log: Explain properties type (bug #46517) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-11-11 12:56:16] sites at hubmed dot org Thanks. I also found that count($xml->item) works as expected, which is useful. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-11-11 11:15:51] jani@php.net This explains what happens quite good: http://vega.rd.no/article/simplexml-not-that-simple Documentation is a bit vague about this though. Reclassified. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-11-07 16:03:21] sites at hubmed dot org Actually, it seems that using foreach($xml->item) works the same whether there's one item or multiple, so it's possible to work around this using the following: ========== $items = array(); foreach ($xml->item as $item) $items[] = $item; ========== That seems to always produce an array of the appropriate objects. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-11-07 15:30:19] sites at hubmed dot org Description: ------------ This is a duplicate of bug 45023, which is marked as bogus but needs reopening. I'm seeing the same problem with the latest CVS version: PHP 5.2.7RC2-dev (cli) (built: Nov 7 2008 15:02:08) Mac OS 10.5.5 libxml2 2.6.30 At the moment, it's not possible to check whether a SimpleXML element is an array or an object and iterate appropriately (as foreach() will iterate over both an array and an object). Reproduce code: --------------- $xml = simplexml_load_string('<root><item>a</item><item>b</item></root>'); print_r($xml); foreach ($xml->item as $item) print "\n" . 'Item: ' . (string) $item; print "\n"; print'Type: ' . gettype($xml->item); print "\n"; print is_array($xml->item) ? 'Is an array' : 'Not an array'; print "\n"; print_r($xml->item); print_r($xml->item[1]); Expected result: ---------------- gettype($xml->item) should return 'array', and is_array($xml->item) should return true. $xml->item should retrieve the whole array, not just the first item. Actual result: -------------- SimpleXMLElement Object ( [item] => Array ( [0] => a [1] => b ) ) Item: a Item: b Type: object Not an array SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => a ) SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => b ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=46517&edit=1