SimpleXMLElement
PHP Manual

SimpleXMLElement::asXML

Return a well-formed XML string based on SimpleXML element

Description

public stringbool SimpleXMLElement::asXML(stringnull $filename = null)

The asXML method formats the parent object's data in XML version 1.0.

Parameters

filename

If a string value is provided, the function writes the data to the file rather than returning it.

Return Values

If the filename isn't specified, this function returns a string on success and false on error. If the parameter is specified, it returns true if the file was written successfully and false otherwise.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 filename is nullable now.

Examples

Example #1 Get XML

<?php
$string = <<<XML
<a>
 <b>
  <c>text</c>
  <c>stuff</c>
 </b>
 <d>
  <c>code</c>
 </d>
</a>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);

echo $xml->asXML();

?>

The above example will output:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<a>
 <b>
  <c>text</c>
  <c>stuff</c>
 </b>
 <d>
  <c>code</c>
 </d>
</a>

asXML also works on Xpath results:

Example #2 Using asXML() on SimpleXMLElement::xpath results

<?php
// Continued from example XML above.

/* Search for <a><b><c> */
$result = $xml->xpath('/a/b/c');

foreach ($result as $node) {
    echo $node->asXML();
}
?>

The above example will output:

<c>text</c><c>stuff</c>

See Also