PHP SimpleXMLElement - xpath() Method

The PHP SimpleXMLElement::xpath() method searches the SimpleXML node for children matching the XPath expression.

Syntax

public SimpleXMLElement::xpath(expression)

Parameters

expression Required. Specify an XPath path.

Return Value

Returns an array of SimpleXMLElement objects on success, or null or false in case of an error.

Example: xpath() example

The example below shows the usage of SimpleXMLElement::xpath() 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);

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

foreach($result as $node){
  echo "/userlist/user/name: $node \n";
}

//relative paths also work
$result = $xml->xpath('user/name');

foreach($result as $node){
  echo "user/name: $node \n";
}
?>

The output of the above code will be:

/userlist/user/name: John Smith 
/userlist/user/name: Marry G. 
user/name: John Smith 
user/name: Marry G.

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