loadXML() strangeness

Maybe it's just me, but this isn't behaving as I think it should. loadXML() is supposed to return T/F, depending on if it's succeeded or not. and should throw a false if the XML isn't well-formed. however, that's not what I'm seeing here. during some testing, the XML I'm trying to load is blank (except for maybe a return), but it seems to be returning true and trying to parse it. basically, all I'm doing is: if($dom->loadXML($fxml) == true){...} and it appears that the code inside the if is running (I'm writing a file out of the XML that's being parsed and it's showing up - although it's empty). here's the warning that's being sent to the page: Warning: DOMDocument::loadXML() [function.DOMDocument-loadXML]: Start tag expected, '<' not found in Entity, line: 2 in C:\www\op.dev\public_html\assets\inc\parser.php on line 278 Guess I could always check for a beginning <, but I assumed that loadXML() would do this? what's the scoop here? Bill