PHP SimpleXMLElement - asXML() Method

The PHP SimpleXMLElement::asXML() method formats the parent object's data in XML version 1.0.

Syntax

public SimpleXMLElement::asXML(filename)

Parameters

filename Optional. If provided, the function writes the data to the file rather than returning it.

Return Value

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

Example: get XML

The example below shows the usage of SimpleXMLElement::asXML() method.

<?php
$xmlstr = <<<XML
<userlist> 
  <user id="John123">
    <name>John Smith</name>
    <city>New York</city>
    <phone>+1-8054098000</phone>
  </user>
  
  <user id="Marry2015">
    <name>Marry G.</name>
    <city>London</city>
    <phone>+33-147996101</phone>
  </user> 
</userlist> 
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);

echo $xml->asXML();
?>

The output of the above code will be:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<userlist> 
  <user id="John123">
    <name>John Smith</name>
    <city>New York</city>
    <phone>+1-8054098000</phone>
  </user>
  
  <user id="Marry2015">
    <name>Marry G.</name>
    <city>London</city>
    <phone>+33-147996101</phone>
  </user> 
</userlist>

Example: using on SimpleXMLElement::xpath() results

In the example below, this function is used on SimpleXMLElement::xpath() result.

<?php
$xmlstr = <<<XML
<userlist> 
  <user id="John123">
    <name>John Smith</name>
    <city>New York</city>
    <phone>+1-8054098000</phone>
  </user>
  
  <user id="Marry2015">
    <name>Marry G.</name>
    <city>London</city>
    <phone>+33-147996101</phone>
  </user> 
</userlist> 
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);

//search for <userlist><user><name>
$result = $xml->xpath('/userlist/user/name');

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

The output of the above code will be:

<name>John Smith</name><name>Marry G.</name>

❮ PHP SimpleXML Reference