In order to demonstrate how XML strings can be loaded onto regular objects for further processing, I'll use the sample XML file that I built in the first article, as the foundation for creating a basic XML data string. As you'll probably recall, this XML file looked like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<users>
<user>
<name>John Doe</name>
<address>Binary Avenue 1234 FL</address>
<email>john@john-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Janet Smith</name>
<address>Crazy Bits Road 4568 CA</address>
<email>janet@janet-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>James Smith</name>
<address>Socket Boulevard 7894 OH</address>
<email>james@james-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Silvia Wilson</name>
<address>Protocol Avenue 5652 NY</address>
<email>silvia@silvia-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Alejandro Gervasio</name>
<address>Boulevard of Objects 10101 AR</address>
<email>alejandro@alejandro-domain.com</email>
</user>
</users>

As you can see, the above XML file is pretty understandable, since it contains a few simple <user> nodes that also include some additional child nodes. Now, based on the structure of this file, I'm going to create a new file, which will contain the following XML string:

$xmlstr=<<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<users>
<user>
<name>John Doe</name>
<address>Binary Avenue 1234 FL</address>
<email>john@john-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Janet Smith</name>
<address>Crazy Bits Road 4568 CA</address>
<email>janet@janet-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>James Smith</name>
<address>Socket Boulevard 7894 OH</address>
<email>james@james-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Silvia Wilson</name>
<address>Protocol Avenue 5652 NY</address>
<email>silvia@silvia-domain.com</email>
</user>
<user>
<name>Alejandro Gervasio</name>
<address>Boulevard of Objects 10101 AR</address>
<email>alejandro@alejandro-domain.com</email>
</user>
</users>
XML;

Well, creating a sample XML string wasn't a big deal, right? Now that I have an XML data string to work with, I'll use the "simplexml_load_string()" function that comes with the "simpleXML" library to load the corresponding XML data onto a regular object. Take a look at the following example:

// example using 'simplexml_load_string()' function
// include XML string
require_once 'xml_string.php';
if(!$xml=simplexml_load_string($xmlstr)){
    trigger_error('Error reading XML string',E_USER_ERROR);
}
echo 'Displaying contents of XML file...<br />';
foreach($xml as $user){
    echo 'Name: '.$user->name.' Address: '.$user->address.'
Email: '.$user->email.'<br />';
}

In this case, after including the pertinent PHP file that contains the previous XML string (called "xml_string.php"), the above script uses the "simplexml_load_string()" function, first for loading XML data onto the $xml object, and then for displaying the values of the corresponding child nodes.

As you can see, these child nodes are accessed as object properties, which makes it extremely easy to traverse a given XML string, something similar to the examples that you learned regarding the implementation of the "simplexml_load_file()" function.

As you may have guessed, the output of the previous example is as follows:

Displaying contents of XML file...
Name: John Doe Address: Binary Avenue 1234 FL Email:
john@domain.com
Name: Janet Smith Address: Crazy Bits Road 4568 CA Email:
janet@janet-domain.com
Name: James Smith Address: Socket Boulevard 7894 OH Email:
james@james-domain.com
Name: Silvia Wilson Address: Protocol Avenue 5652 NY Email:
silvia@silvia-domain.com
Name: Alejandro Gervasio Address: Boulevard of Objects 10101 AR
Email: alejandro@alejandro-domain.com

Don't tell me that wasn't pretty cool! The "simplexml_load_string()" function will allow you to load an XML string onto an object and traverse it by a regular "foreach" loop. Are you starting to see why this library is called "simpleXML"?

At this point, you saw how easy it is to load XML strings onto objects, so let's move one and see how specific nodes can be accessed as regular object properties. That's exactly the subject of the next section, therefore click on the link below to learn more about this.