SimpleXML PHP Variable issue

Question

Below you will find my xml document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<app>
    <version>0925</version>
    <humanVersion>0.9.25</humanVersion>
</app>

Here is my php:

$completeurl = "ota/shingle/shingle.xml";
$xml = simplexml_load_file($completeurl);
$updateVer = $xml->version;
$updateVerHuman = $xml->humanVersion;

I am taking the php variables and putting them into a json string, here is the output:

{"updateVer":{"0":"0925"},"updateVerHuman":{"0":"0.9.25"}}

Why is the updateVer and updateVerHuman data enclosed in {} and contains "0":?? I would like only the data in that value. How do I achieve this?

I have tried this but it produces the same result:

$updateVer = $xml->version[0];
$updateVerHuman = $xml->humanVersion[0];

Answer 1

When you access any child element (or even attribute) with SimpleXML, you get back another SimpleXML object - this is why you can write things like $node->child->grand_child .

In order to get just the string content of a particular bit of XML, you need to "cast" the SimpleXML object to a string, using (string)$variable .

Sometimes, this will happen for you - notably, since you can't echo anything other than a string, echo $variable will always cast to a string for you. However, as a rule of thumb, always cast SimpleXML objects to string to avoid later confusion.

In your example, $updateVer and $updateVerHuman are both still objects when you turn them to JSON. $updateVer = (string)$xml->version; $updateVerHuman = (string)$xml->humanVersion; should give the expected result.