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Bug #46047 SimpleXML converts empty nodes into object with nested array
Submitted: 2008-09-10 21:37 UTC Modified: 2008-09-11 14:25 UTC
From: dalef at yahoo-inc dot com Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: SimpleXML related
PHP Version: 5.2CVS-2008-09-10 (snap) OS: FreeBSD 4
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
 [2008-09-10 21:37 UTC] dalef at yahoo-inc dot com
Description:
------------
When I run the following script I get strange results that are difficult to test against, and when converted to json, a real pain to use on the client-side.

<?php
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<foo><bar><![CDATA[]]></bar><baz/></foo>', LIBXML_NOCDATA);
    print_r($xml);
    $json = json_encode($xml);
    echo "{$json}\n";
?>

Since bar is empty (Even though it has a CDATA tag that is removed) before it gets to me ... I should get something like this
bar => ""
OR
at most ...
bar => SimpleXMLElemebt object ()

but ... what I don't expect is this:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [bar] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [0] => 
        )
...

When this data is converted to json ... I get bar:{"0":""} which requires me to do typeof and other types of tests on the client-side.

I mentioned this issue to our resident FE PHP expert here at Y! and they said to file a bug.



Reproduce code:
---------------
Run this script on the command line:

<?php
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<foo><bar><![CDATA[]]></bar><baz/></foo>', LIBXML_NOCDATA);
    print_r($xml);
    $json = json_encode($xml);
    echo "{$json}\n";
?>

Expected result:
----------------
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [bar] => ""
)

OR 

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [bar] => SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
    )
)

Actual result:
--------------
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [bar] => SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
        [0] => ""
    )
)

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History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2008-09-11 14:25 UTC] rrichards@php.net
This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.


 
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