This bug was introduced in 5.4.0, as can be seen on:

http://3v4l.org/MEL9Y


for the following test:

$string = <<<XML
<a>
	<b>success</b>
</a>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);
$result = $xml->xpath('/a/b');

foreach ($result as $r)
{
    if (!empty($r))
    {
    	print_r((string)$r);
    }
    else
    {
        echo 'failure';
    }
}

hey, acurioso, do you have time to look at this?

I assume this is introduced in 
https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/1e3b32c7

thanks

I don't know if is exactly the same bug, but I have a similar problem.

The empty function is returning true when accessing the sub-elements using the main object, and is returning false when accessing the sub-elements using the variable containing the sub-element.

Example script:

$xmlstr = '<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<movies>
<movie>
    <title></title>
</movie>
</movies>';


$movies = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);

$subelement = $movies->movie->title;

echo "Accesing normal: " . PHP_EOL;
echo var_dump($movies->movie->title) . PHP_EOL;
echo var_dump(empty($movies->movie->title)) . PHP_EOL;

echo "Accesing subelement: " . PHP_EOL;
echo var_dump($subelement) . PHP_EOL;
echo var_dump(empty($subelement)) . PHP_EOL;

I guess my problem is related to this bug:

TEST:
-----------------------
$xmlString = '<?xml version="1.0" ?><root><node>not empty</node><node></node><node attr="attr"></node></root>';
$xmlObject = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlString);
echo $xmlString;
echo $xmlObject->asXML();

Expected result:
-------------------
<root>
  <node>not empty</node>
  <node></node>
  <node attr="attr"></node>
</root>

Actual result:
-------------------
<root>
  <node>not empty</node>
  <node>
    <node attr="attr"></node>
  </node>
</root>

According to https://3v4l.org/NddfL this is fixed since 5.5.27/5.6.11.

Original code doesn't seem to reproduce. https://3v4l.org/2COOt