php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login
Doc Bug #61302 SimpleXML documentation has an error.
Submitted: 2012-03-06 17:13 UTC Modified: 2012-03-15 02:01 UTC
From: timothy at green dot name Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: Documentation problem
PHP Version: Irrelevant OS: Fedora Linux
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
Welcome! If you don't have a Git account, you can't do anything here.
If you reported this bug, you can edit this bug over here.
(description)
Block user comment
Status: Assign to:
Package:
Bug Type:
Summary:
From: timothy at green dot name
New email:
PHP Version: OS:

 

 [2012-03-06 17:13 UTC] timothy at green dot name
Description:
------------
---
From manual page: http://www.php.net/simplexml.examples-basic
---
The documentation reads:
$movies = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
echo $movies->movie[0]->plot;
The above example will output:

   So, this language. It's like, a programming language. Or is it a
   scripting language? All is revealed in this thrilling horror spoof
   of a documentary.

No. That example will not output that. It outputs a SimpleXML Object. You need to cast it to a string to get that output. The documentation should make this clearer.

Test script:
---------------
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
$movies = file_get_contents('sample.movies.xml');
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($movies);
$plot = (string)$xml->movie->plot;
var_dump($plot);
foreach ($plot as $v) {
    var_dump($v);
}
exit(__FILE__ . ': ' . __LINE__);


Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2012-03-15 02:01 UTC] dtajchreber@php.net
http://codepad.org/720OYnFR

In short, echo $obj; that has a __toString method defined gives you a string.

http://svn.php.net/viewvc/php/php-src/trunk/ext/simplexml/simplexml.c?
revision=321634&view=markup#l1839
 [2012-03-15 02:01 UTC] dtajchreber@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Not a bug
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2026 The PHP Group
All rights reserved.
Last updated: Wed Oct 07 08:00:02 2026 UTC