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Bug #52463 SimpleXml ignores attributes
Submitted: 2010-07-27 21:26 UTC Modified: 2010-07-28 07:14 UTC
From: circus2 at freenet dot de Assigned:
Status: Duplicate Package: SimpleXML related
PHP Version: 5.3.3 OS: Win7 Home Premium GER
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2010-07-27 21:26 UTC] circus2 at freenet dot de 
Description:
------------
I have a short xml and the attributes for the second node are not available.



Test script:
---------------
$xml = '
    <xml>
        <value type="string" key="name"></value>
        <value type="string" key="name">myValue</value>
    </xml>
';

var_dump(simplexml_load_string($xml));

Expected result:
----------------
Array
(
    [value] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [type] => string
                            [key] => name
                        )

                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [type] => string
                            [key] => name
                        )
                    [0] => myValue

                )
        )

)

Or something similar.


Actual result:
--------------
Array
(
    [value] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [@attributes] => Array
                        (
                            [type] => string
                            [key] => name
                        )

                )

            [1] => myValue
        )

)

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2010-07-27 23:10 UTC] rasmus@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Duplicate
 [2010-07-27 23:10 UTC] rasmus@php.net 
This is a known cosmetic issue in var_dump().  If you actually iterate through the 
object it works fine.
 [2010-07-28 07:14 UTC] circus2 at freenet dot de 
I'm not concerned about var_dump(). I think more of json_encode() which has the same issues. I use json_encode/json_decode to transform a SimpleXml object to an array.

print_r(json_decode(json_encode($xml), true)));
 [2013-06-19 07:27 UTC] nm at lindenvalley dot de 
have same problem, it's not var_dump error, because print_r has same trouble

code:
$xmlObj = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
print_r ($xmlObj);
 [2014-04-02 12:15 UTC] zashme at gmail dot com 
I have the same problem, i have PHP 5.5.10 x86_64, linux 3.13.6
 [2014-04-02 15:55 UTC] ab@php.net 
Related To: Bug #66084
 [2014-04-03 17:30 UTC] php at kenman dot net 
As circus2 at freenet dot de points out, this is not merely a var_dump() issue.

Here's a repro from the linked issue (Bug #66084); note the only difference in input is a single space in the XML:

echo json_encode(simplexml_load_string('<a><b/><c><x/></c></a>')), PHP_EOL;
echo json_encode(simplexml_load_string('<a><b/><c> <x/></c></a>'));
 [2015-01-26 20:56 UTC] jake dot e dot wilson at gmail dot com 
This is only a bug when printing the values. SimpleXML IS parsing the attributes and you can reference them:

$string = '
<xml>
	<value type="string" key="name"></value>
	<value type="string" key="name">myValue</value>
</xml>
';

$xml = simplexml_load_string($string);

foreach( $xml as $element ) {
	echo $element."\n";
	foreach( $element->attributes() as $key=>$value) {
		echo "\t".$key."=>".$value."\n";
	}
}

will result in


	type=>string
	key=>name
myValue
	type=>string
	key=>name

The attributes (their keys and values) are there. They just don't print out properly when using var_dump, print_r, echo, etc... Just use the ->attributes() method to reference them. However, if this printing/display bug is something to do with SimpleXML it should definitely be fixed. Because this is very misleading to not see the attributes when doing a var_dump.
 
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