SimpleXML returning attributes as objects instead of strings

SimpleXML returns attribute values as SimpleXMLElement objects instead of strings. E.g, given this: $sxe = simplexml_load_string('<octopus arms="eight" legs="">Doc Ock</octopus>'); $sxe['arms'] and $sxe['legs'] are SimpleXMLElement objects. This mostly works OK, but causes problems when using empty() to test if an attribute has a value. empty($sxe['arms']) is false, but so is empty($sxe['legs']). An easy workaround is to use strlen() instead of empty(), I suppose (except if an attribute value is "0"), but I am wondering why SimpleXML works this way. Thanks, David