This is the output of print_r()
run on a typical SimpleXMLElement object:
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[@attributes] => Array
(
)
)
What does the @ sign mean?
This is the output of print_r()
run on a typical SimpleXMLElement object:
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[@attributes] => Array
(
)
)
What does the @ sign mean?
This is a SimpleXMLElement object. The '@attributes' row is an internal representation of the attributes from the XML element. Use SimpleXML's functions to get data from this object rather than interacting with it directly.
All those answers about error control are incorrect. The @ doesn't mean anything. That's how the property is called internally, but do not rely on this. Do not rely on print_r()
or var_dump()
when dealing with SimpleXML. SimpleXML does a lot of "magical" things that are not correctly represented by print_r()
and var_dump()
.
If you need to know what's "inside" a XML fragment, just use ->asXML()
on it.
Sorry, can't comment as a guest but for anyone else who ends up here like I did... I am creating my own Joomla form fields and Joomla creates a very 'interesting' object of all sorts of things. Now, I didn't want to become a SimpleXML expert, all I wanted was the original label text which was squirrelled away in @attributes.
After a bit of "hmmm, I wonder if this works?"™
I found this is the easiest way of accessing these values:
var_dump($simpleXMLObject);
/* Result */
object(SimpleXMLElement)
public '@attributes' =>
array (size=3)
'name' => string 'awesome'
'label' => string 'Awesome Label'
'type' => string 'typeOfAwesome'
echo $simpleXMLObject->attributes()->label; // Awesome Label
$simpleXMLObject->attributes()->label = 'Different Day, Different Awesome';
echo $simpleXMLObject->attributes()->label; // Different Day, Different Awesome
They were not lying. It really is simple.
I don't have enough reps to comment on user3098738... but wanted to validate his response. It really is that simple. Any time you run in to @attributes in SimpleXML... use
$simpleXMLObject->attributes()
$simpleXMLObject->key->attributes()
I am working with an HTTP API that gives out only XML formatted data. So first I loaded it into SimpleXML and was also puzzled by the @attributes issue.. how do I get at the precious data it contains? print_r() confused me.
My solution was to create an array and an iterator variable at 0. Loop through a SimpleXML object with foreach and get at the data with the attribues() method and load it into my created array. Iterate before foreach loop ends.
So print_r() went from showing this:
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[@attributes] => Array
(
[ID] => 1
[First] => John
[Last] => Smith
)
)
To a much more usable normal array. Which is great because I wanted the option to quickly convert array into json if needed.
My solution in code:
$obj = simplexml_load_string($apiXmlData);
$fugly = $obj->Deeply->Nested->XML->Data->Names;
$people = array();
$i = 0;
foreach($fugly as $val)
{
$people[$i]['id'] += $val->attributes()->ID;
$people[$i]['first'] = "". $val->attributes()->First;
$people[$i]['last'] = "". $val->attributes()->Last;
$i++;
}
Quick note would be PHP's settype() function is weird/buggy, so I added the + to make sure ID is an integer and added the quotes to make sure the name is string. If there isn't a variable conversion of some kind, you're going to be loading SimpleXML objects into the array you created.
Final result of print_r():
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[id] => 1
[first] => John
[last] => Smith
)
[1] => Array
(
[id] => 2
[first] => Jane
[last] => Doe
)
)