php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login

go to bug id or search bugs for

Thank you for your help! If the status of the bug report you submitted changes, you will be notified. You may return here and check the status or update your report at any time.
The URL for your bug report is: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=68540.
Doc Bug #68540 Documenation about checking SimpleXML needs clarification
Submitted: 2014-12-03 10:47 UTC Modified: 2021-01-08 11:05 UTC
Votes:4
Avg. Score:3.0 ± 0.0
Reproduced:0 of 0 (0.0%)
From: seo at gacek dot vot dot pl Assigned: cmb (profile)
Status: Closed Package: SimpleXML related
PHP Version: Irrelevant OS:
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
 [2014-12-03 10:47 UTC] seo at gacek dot vot dot pl 
Description:
------------
---
From manual page: http://www.php.net/language.types.boolean
---

Documentation needs some more information, to clarify when simplexml object is considered true.

More information here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/27157104/1430632


Tried adding it to documentation
  <warning>
   <simpara>
    <literal>SimpleXML</literal> evaluates to &true; only if it has child nodes or properties - only then object is not considered empty.
    To check if <literal>SimpleXML</literal> object has &string; value you have to cast it to &string;
   </simpara>
  </warning>

Patches

Leader (last revision 2017-11-13 05:15 UTC by Terserah26 at gmail dot com)

Pull Requests

Pull requests:

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2015-05-27 22:59 UTC] cmb@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Verified
 [2015-05-27 22:59 UTC] cmb@php.net 
I agree that the wording of the documentation is unfortunate:

| SimpleXML objects created from empty tags

An empty tag would most likely be something like <>. Speaking of
empty elements would be better, but would not take into account
that an empty element may have attributes (not properties), and in
this case casting the respective SimpleXML to bool would also
yield true.
 [2017-01-28 12:50 UTC] cmb@php.net
-Package: Documentation problem +Package: SimpleXML related
 [2021-01-08 11:05 UTC] cmb@php.net
-Summary: Documenattion about checking SimpleXML needs clarification +Summary: Documenation about checking SimpleXML needs clarification -Assigned To: +Assigned To: cmb
 [2021-01-08 11:07 UTC] cmb@php.net 
Automatic comment on behalf of cmbecker69@gmx.de
Revision: http://git.php.net/?p=doc/en.git;a=commit;h=c4ac84bedb318bd3fad78c92379e3becd725a7b9
Log: Fix #68540: Documenation about checking SimpleXML needs clarification
 [2021-01-08 11:07 UTC] cmb@php.net
-Status: Verified +Status: Closed
 [2021-01-09 02:35 UTC] mumumu@php.net 
Automatic comment on behalf of mumumu@mumumu.org
Revision: http://git.php.net/?p=doc/ja.git;a=commit;h=730e862a892e3f61450f47f0a1f983807c520f08
Log: Fix #68540: Documenation about checking SimpleXML needs clarification
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved. 		Last updated: Mon Dec 22 08:00:02 2025 UTC