Converting SimpleXML Objects into Arrays

Dec 11, 2008 · 2 minute read
Category: php

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PHP’s simple XML is sometimes counter intuitive. Whilst it is acknowledged to be more simple than its predecessors, the “simple” name might be pushing things a bit.

One thing that keeps cropping up when working with SimpleXML is the way that it lets you work with its objects as if they were arrays. That sometimes makes you feel like you are working with an array - and therefore makes things confusing when they display particularly non array like behaviour.

Sometimes the simplest thing to do here is to turn the object into a real array.

Check out this function:

function sx_array($obj){
	$arr = (array)$obj;
	if(empty($arr)){
		$arr = "";
	} else {
		foreach($arr as $key=>$value){
			if(!is_scalar($value)){
				$arr[$key] = sx_array($value);
			}
		}
	}
	return $arr;
}

For example if you are working with an xml element that may or may not contain attributes, converting to an array first will allow you to figure this out.

For example

$file_index_xml = new SimpleXMLElement($local_full_index, NULL, TRUE);
foreach($file_index_xml->xpath("/interface/files.index/file") as $file){
	$arr = sx_array($file->attributes());
	if($arr['@attributes']['Value']){
		//do something
	}
}