PHP Manual
SimpleXML
The SimpleXMLElement class

The SimpleXMLElement class

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

Introduction

Represents an element in an XML document.

Class synopsis

class SimpleXMLElement implements Stringable, Countable, RecursiveIterator {

/* Methods */

public __construct(
    string $data,
    int $options = 0,
    bool $dataIsURL = false,
    string $namespaceOrPrefix = "",
    bool $isPrefix = false
)

public addAttribute(string $qualifiedName, string $value, ?string $namespace = null): void

public addChild(string $qualifiedName, ?string $value = null, ?string $namespace = null): ?SimpleXMLElement

public asXML(?string $filename = null): string|bool

public attributes(?string $namespaceOrPrefix = null, bool $isPrefix = false): ?SimpleXMLElement

public children(?string $namespaceOrPrefix = null, bool $isPrefix = false): ?SimpleXMLElement

public count(): int

public getDocNamespaces(bool $recursive = false, bool $fromRoot = true): array|false

public getName(): string

public getNamespaces(bool $recursive = false): array

public registerXPathNamespace(string $prefix, string $namespace): bool

public __toString(): string

public xpath(string $expression): array|null|false

}

Changelog

Version	Description
8.0.0	SimpleXMLElement implements Stringable, Countable, and RecursiveIterator now.

SimpleXMLElement::addAttribute — Adds an attribute to the SimpleXML element
SimpleXMLElement::addChild — Adds a child element to the XML node
SimpleXMLElement::asXML — Return a well-formed XML string based on SimpleXML element
SimpleXMLElement::attributes — Identifies an element's attributes
SimpleXMLElement::children — Finds children of given node
SimpleXMLElement::__construct — Creates a new SimpleXMLElement object
SimpleXMLElement::count — Counts the children of an element
SimpleXMLElement::getDocNamespaces — Returns namespaces declared in document
SimpleXMLElement::getName — Gets the name of the XML element
SimpleXMLElement::getNamespaces — Returns namespaces used in document
SimpleXMLElement::registerXPathNamespace — Creates a prefix/ns context for the next XPath query
SimpleXMLElement::saveXML — Alias of SimpleXMLElement::asXML
SimpleXMLElement::__toString — Returns the string content
SimpleXMLElement::xpath — Runs XPath query on XML data