PHP Tutorial - PHP simplexml_load_string() Function

The simplexml_load_string() function converts a well-formed XML string into a SimpleXMLElement object.

Syntax

Syntax for PHP simplexml_load_string() Function has the following syntax.

simplexml_load_string(data,classname,options,ns,is_prefix);

Parameter

Parameter	Is required	Description
data	Required.	A well-formed XML string
classname	Optional.	Class of the new object
options	Optional.	Additional Libxml parameters. Is set by specifying the option and 1 or 0 (TRUE or FALSE, e.g. LIBXML_NOBLANKS(1))
ns	Optional.	Namespace prefix or URI
is_prefix	Optional.	TRUE if ns is a prefix. FALSE if ns is a URI. Default is FALSE

Possible values for options:

LIBXML_COMPACT - Activate nodes allocation optimization (may speed up application)
LIBXML_DTDATTR - Set default DTD attributes
LIBXML_DTDLOAD - Load external subset
LIBXML_DTDVALID - Validate with the DTD
LIBXML_NOBLANKS - Remove blank nodes
LIBXML_NOCDATA - Merge CDATA as text nodes
LIBXML_NOEMPTYTAG - Expand empty tags (e.g. <br/> to <br></br>), only available in the DOMDocument->save() and DOMDocument->saveXML() functions
LIBXML_NOENT - Substitute entities
LIBXML_NOERROR - Do not show error reports
LIBXML_NONET - Disable network access while loading documents
LIBXML_NOWARNING - Do not show warning reports
LIBXML_NOXMLDECL - Drop the XML declaration when saving a document
LIBXML_NSCLEAN - Remove redundant namespace declarations
LIBXML_PARSEHUGE - Sets XML_PARSE_HUGE flag, which relaxes any hardcoded limit from the parser. This affects limits like maximum depth of a document and limits of the size of text nodes
LIBXML_XINCLUDE - Implement XInclude substitution
LIBXML_ERR_ERROR - Get recoverable errors
LIBXML_ERR_FATAL - Get fatal errors
LIBXML_ERR_NONE - Get no errors
LIBXML_ERR_WARNING - Get simple warnings
LIBXML_VERSION - Get libxml version
LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION - Get dotted libxml version

Return

Returns a SimpleXMLElement object on success. FALSE on failure.

Example 1

Convert a well-formed XML string into a SimpleXMLElement object, then output keys and elements of the object:


<?php//w ww .j  a  va 2  s.c o  m
$note=<<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<book>
    <name>PHP</name>
    <name>Java</name>
</book>
XML;

$xml=simplexml_load_string($note);
print_r($xml);
?>

The code above generates the following result.

Example 2

Output the data from each element in the XML string:


<?php//from w w w.  j a v a 2s. co m
$note=<<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<book>
    <name>PHP</name>
    <name>Java</name>
</book>
XML;

$xml=simplexml_load_string($note);
echo $xml->to . "\n";
echo $xml->from . "\n";
echo $xml->heading . "\n";
echo $xml->body;
?>

Example 3

Output the element's name and data for each child node in the XML string:


<?php//www  . ja  v  a  2  s .  co  m
$note=<<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<book>
    <name>PHP</name>
    <name>Java</name>
</book>
XML;

$xml=simplexml_load_string($note);
echo $xml->getName() . "\n";

foreach($xml->children() as $child){
   echo $child->getName() . ": " . $child . "\n";
}
?>

The code above generates the following result.