Retrieving attributes from a SimpleXMLElement

Question

How would I get to the name variable given the object. $obj->@attributes['name']; would obviously not work.

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (
            [name] => Address
        )

    [value] => Address
)

Answer 1

I believe it's just $obj['name'].

See their basic usage doc for more info.

Answer 2

What about $obj['name'] ?

For instance, if you take this portion of code :

$str = <<<XML
<root>
    <a name="test">
        glop
    </a>
</root>
XML;

$xml = simplexml_load_string($str);

And these :

var_dump($xml->a);

Will get you :

object(SimpleXMLElement)[2]
  public '@attributes' => 
    array
      'name' => string 'test' (length=4)
  string '
        glop
    ' (length=18)

And

var_dump($xml->a['name']);

Will get you :

object(SimpleXMLElement)[4]
  string 'test' (length=4)

And casting this to a string :

var_dump((string)$xml->a['name']);

Finally gets you what you want :

string 'test' (length=4)

ie, you just use array-access to get the values of attributes.

Answer 3

You're asking the wrong question. Don't ask people how to do things your way, ask them how to do them right.

Describe what you really want to do, not how you're trying to do it.

Answer 4

For a SimpleXMLElement, you can access attributes using array access syntax

$obj['name']

Alternatively, you could type

$obj->attributes()->name