note 64837 modified in function.simplexml-element-children by danbrown

Sometimes you actually want an array, not a pseudo array. This is especially true when you aren't dealing with attributes (i.e., you just want the array of child nodes). Do like this: <?php $children = $sxml->xpath('child::node()'); ?> The reason you might want this is to be able to use array functions like array_shift, array_pop, etc. This is especially true when you are writing recursive functions. Simplexml works really well in iterative programming, but if you try to implement recursion it gets ugly. --was-- Sometimes you actually want an array, not a pseudo array. This is especially true when you aren't dealing with attributes (i.e., you just want the array of child nodes). Do like this: <?php $children = $sxml->xpath('child::node()'); ?> The reason you might want this is to be able to use array functions like array_shift, array_pop, etc. This is especially true when you are writing recursive functions. Simplexml works really well in iterative programming, but if you try to implement recursion it gets ugly. http://php.net/manual/en/function.simplexml-element-children.php