PHP get XML attribute

Question

Hi,

Sorry if this seems like an easy question, but I've started pulling hair out on this...

I have a XML file which looks like this...

<VAR VarNum="90">
  <option>1</option>
</VAR>

I'm trying to get the VarNum.

So far I've been successful using the follow code to get the other information:

$xml=simplexml_load_file($file);
$option=$xml->option;

I just can't get VarNum (the attribute value I think?)

Thanks!

Answer 1

What about using $xml['VarNum'] ?

Like this :

$str = <<<XML
<VAR VarNum="90">
  <option>1</option>
</VAR>
XML;

$xml=simplexml_load_string($str);
$option=$xml->option;

var_dump((string)$xml['VarNum']);

(I've used simplexml_load_string because I've pasted your XML into a string, instead of creating a file ; what you are doing with simplexml_load_file is fine, in your case !)

Will get you

string '90' (length=2)

With simpleXML, you access attributes with an array syntax.
And you have to cast to a string to get the value, and not and instance of SimpleXMLElement

For instance, see example #5 of Basic usage in the manual :-)

Answer 2

You should be able to get this using SimpleXMLElement::attributes()

Try this:

$xml=simplexml_load_file($file);
foreach($xml->Var[0]->attributes() as $a => $b) {
    echo $a,'="',$b,"\"\n";
}

That will show you all the name/value attributes for the first foo element. It's an associative array, so you can do this as well:

$attr = $xml->Var[0]->attributes();
echo $attr['VarNum'];