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PHP simplexml_load_file() Function

❮ PHP SimpleXML Reference

Example

Convert an XML file into a SimpleXMLElement object, then output keys and elements of the object:

<?php
$xml=simplexml_load_file("note.xml");
print_r($xml);
?>
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Definition and Usage

The simplexml_load_file() function converts the specified XML file into a SimpleXMLElement object.

Syntax

simplexml_load_file(file,classname,options,ns,is_prefix);

Parameter Description
file Required. Specifies the path to the XML file
classname Optional. Specifies the class of the new object
options Optional. Specifies additional Libxml parameters. Is set by specifying the option and 1 or 0 (TRUE or FALSE, e.g. LIBXML_NOBLANKS(1))

Possible values:

  • 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 (e.g. 20605 or 20617)
  • LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION - Get dotted libxml version (e.g. 2.6.5 or 2.6.17)
ns Optional. Specifies a namespace prefix or URI
is_prefix Optional. Specifies a Boolean value. TRUE if ns is a prefix. FALSE if ns is a URI. Default is FALSE

Technical Details

Return Value: Returns a SimpleXMLElement object on success. FALSE on failure
PHP Version: 5+

More Examples

Assume we have the following XML file, "note.xml":

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<note>
<to>Tove</to>
<from>Jani</from>
<heading>Reminder</heading>
<body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>

Example 1

Output the data from each element in the XML file:

<?php
$xml=simplexml_load_file("note.xml");
echo $xml->to . "<br>";
echo $xml->from . "<br>";
echo $xml->heading . "<br>";
echo $xml->body;
?>
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Example 2

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

<?php
$xml=simplexml_load_file("note.xml");
echo $xml->getName() . "<br>";

foreach($xml->children() as $child)
  {
  echo $child->getName() . ": " . $child . "<br>";
  }
?>
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❮ PHP SimpleXML Reference