Reading from a string

While simplexml_load_file() loads XML data from a file, simplexml_load_string() loads XML data from a string. This is generally not as useful, but it does allow you to easily load several XML files into one string, then use that inside one SimpleXML structure.

Take a look at the following script:

<?php

  $employees = <<<EOT
 <employees>

  <employee ID="2" FOO="BAR">

  <name>Anthony Clarke</name>

  <title>Chief Information Officer</title>

  <age>48</age>

  </employee>

  <employee ID="2" BAZ="WOM">

  <name>Laura Pollard</name>

  <title>Chief Executive Officer</title>

  <age>54</age>

  </employee>

  </employees>
 EOT;  
 $employees = simplexml_load_string($employees);

  

  foreach ($employees->employee as $employee) {

      print "{$employee->name} is {$employee->title} at age {$employee->age}\n";

  }
 ?>

As you can see, the majority of the script is just there heredoc-style string assignment that sets up the XML. Then, with a call to simplexml_load_string(), the XML is parsed into the $employees object, just as with the simplexml_load_file() function. The resulting object is no different, as can be seen with the output from the foreach loop.

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