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Bug #31846 simplexml_load_string doesn't get root node
Submitted: 2005-02-04 16:28 UTC Modified: 2005-02-07 21:18 UTC
From: andrew at shh dot fi Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: SimpleXML related
PHP Version: 5.0.3 OS: win32
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2005-02-04 16:28 UTC] andrew at shh dot fi 
Description:
------------
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_str) returns all tags correctly except the root node.

There appears to be NO WAY to get the the name of the root tag



Reproduce code:
---------------
$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><article><title>Hello</title></article>';

$simple = simplexml_load_string($xml);

print_r($simple);

Expected result:
----------------
The object should include the root tag, except it starts from child of the root

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 [2005-02-07 16:37 UTC] chregu@php.net 
This is correct. print_r shows you the children nodes of the choosen node. in your code, $simple *is* the root node. I don't see anything wrong. There's no such thing as SimpleXMLDocument Object in SimpleXML.

And yes, there is no way of getting the name of the root tag. Use DOM if you need that.
 [2005-02-07 19:56 UTC] andrew at shh dot fi 
So, using simpleXML, one can never know the root tag. Should we guess? The idea of an XML parser is to return ALL the nodes and not some of them. Take docbook - you have different root nodes depending on whether its simple or full. My point is, if you are having an xml parser, then it needs to read all nodes top-bottom, otherwise there is no point using it - and as you say correctly - might as well use DOM.
 [2005-02-07 19:58 UTC] andrew at shh dot fi 
Will simpleXML ever be changed to include root nodes?
 [2005-02-07 21:18 UTC] amt@php.net 
No. SimpleXML is not about being able to do 100% of XML. It's about doing 80% of XML with 20% of the effort.

Do this instead:

$rootTag = dom_import_simplexml($simple)->tagName;
 [2010-11-12 00:05 UTC] james at populiweb dot com 
just in case it helps anyone, getting the name of the root node is possible:

$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_str);
$xml->getName();
 
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