the following code (taken from phpbuilder) works with php.4.0.6 
with dom and fails with php 4.1.0


<?php

# make an example xml document to play with
$xmlstr = "<" . "?" . "xml version=\"1.0\"" . "?" . ">";
$xmlstr .=
"
<employee>
    <name>Matt</name>
    <position type=\"contract\">Web Guy</position>
</employee>
";

# load xml data ($doc becomes an instance of 
# the DomDocument object)
$doc = xmldoc($xmlstr);

# get root node "employee"
$employee = $doc->root();

# get employee's children ("name","position")
$nodes = $employee->children();

# let's play with the "position" node
# so we must iterate through employee's
# children in search of it
while ($node = array_shift($nodes))
{
    if ($node->name == "position")
    {
        $position = $node;
        break;
    }
}

# get position's type attribute
$type = $position->getattr("type");

# get the text enclosed by the position tag
# shift the first element off of position's children
$text_node = array_shift($position->children());

# access the content property of the text node
$text = $text_node->content;

# echo out the position and type
echo "position: $text<BR>";
echo "type: $type";

?>