DOM: browse childnodes but not recursively

Ciao! I really hope someone can help me on this, since I have been putting in to much time in it now, and I have to show off some results ;) The problem is that I can't browse nodelists in only one dimension, that is, whitout getting the sub-nodes of the nodes. My XML reads: <element id="5">

    <element id="51">Still got the blues</element>
    <element id="52">Gary Moore</element>
    <element id="53">
        <element id="9">
            <element id="531">Maggie May</element>
            <element id="532">Rod Stewart</element>
            <element id="533">UK</element>
            <element id="534">Pickwick</element>
            <element id="535">8.50</element>
            <element id="536">1990</element>
        </element>
       </element>
    <element id="54">Virgin records</element>
    <element id="55">10.20</element>
    <element id="56">1990</element>

</element> I get this as a DOMNodeList in the variable $elements. I will write some examples, to describe my problem. echo $elements->length; // outputs 1 var_dump($elements); // outputs object(DOMNodeList)#5 (0) { } var_dump($elements->item(0)); // contents of element with id="5" // outputs object(DOMElement)#4 (0) { } Here I come to the problem. What I want is to get a list of the 6 elements inside element id="5", but not with child-childs. echo $elements->item(0)->childNodes->length; // Outputs 13!!!!! So, to put it in short words; how do I do to browse the content of the element id="5" withuot doing it recursively? I want to receive a list when I call childNodes (or equivalent) that gives me the elements with id 51-56, and a length of 6. Really really thankful for any input on the matter!!!! Sincerely Victor