note 80576 added to ref.simplexml

Be careful when trying to access a repeated xml tag such as in the example below: <?php $xmlText = "<test> <group> <multi>One</multi> <multi>Two</multi> </group> </test>"; $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlText); ?> SimpleXML will convert this into an object as follows: SimpleXMLElement Object ( [group] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [multi] => Array ( [0] => One [1] => Two ) ) ) From this, you may think as I did, that the following snippet will yield an Array with two elements: <?php print_r($xml->group->multi) ?> What actually happens is that SimpleXMLElement assumes that you want the first element in the array, so the above snippet will actually return: SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => One ) Accessing using Array notation: <?php print_r($xml->group->multi[1]); ?> Will return: SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => Two ) as would be expected. It seems that SimpleXML has a mechanism to determine whether or not you are using Array notation and if not, returning the first element of the array. Unfortunately, this is a real problem for using functions such as count() and is_array(). is_array($xml->group->multi) will actually return false, as you are actually testing against the first element of the multi array, wrapped in a SimpleXMLElement object. The solution, it would seem, is one of the following: 1. Access the element using xpath, which returns an array that can be counted and edited etc.: <?php print_r($xml->group->xpath("multi")); ?> 2. Use isset to detect if array index 1 is present: <?php if(isset($xml->group->multi[1])) { echo "The XML has more than one multi element"; } ?> See http://vega.rd.no/article/simplexml-not-that-simple for further information. I wonder if it might be worth including this in the body of the documentation, as it is quite a big gotcha? ---- Server IP: 194.145.210.3 Probable Submitter: 90.152.49.58 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.simplexml.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/80576 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/80576 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/80576 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php