Using XPath, SOAP, and More with Web Services

Creating XML from a SimpleXML Object

TheasXML()method returns a well-formed XML 1.0 string based on the SimpleXML object. Its prototype follows:

string simplexml_element->asXML()

An example follows:

This example returns the original XML document, except that the newline characters have been removed and the characters have been converted to their corresponding HTML entities.

Learning About a Node’s Children

Often you might be interested in only a particular node’s children. Using thechildren()method, retrieving them becomes a trivial affair. Its prototype follows:

object simplexml_element->children()

Suppose for example that thebooks.xmldocument is modified so that each book includes a cast of characters. The Hemingway book might look like the following:

  <book>
     <title>The Sun Also Rises</title> 
     <author gender="male">Ernest Hemingway</author>
     <description>The masterpiece that launched Hemingway's career.</description>
     <cast>
        <character>Jake Barnes</character>
        <character>Lady Brett Ashley</character>
        <character>Robert Cohn</character>
        <character>Mike Campbell</character>
     </cast>
  </book>

Using thechildren()method, you can easily retrieve the characters:

This example returns the following:

--------------------------------------------
Jake Barnes
Lady Brett Ashley
Robert Cohn
Mike Campbell
--------------------------------------------