SimpleXML bug

The problem is one of simplicity ;)
I ran into the same problem a couple days ago. In the two examples, an
array of element 'child' is expected. That array may be one or more
elements. SimpleXML turns multiple children of the same element name
into array's, but a single child is not. I'm not sure what the right
answere is for it though, other than conditionaly checking for a single
child.

There's a part of me that thinks that children should be accessed via a
function, but then you start getting dom-like:

$root->childNodes()[0]

and it always works. It also prevents problems with something like:

Shane

Sterling Hughes wrote:

Zeev seems to be working on foreach and simplexml, but the above
behaviour is the correct one. Why should the first loop? If I did:

<?php
foreach ("hello" as $world) {
var_dump($world);
}
?>

what would i get?

-Sterling

The following script

<?php
$root = simplexml_load_string('
<root>
<child />
</root>
');

foreach ($root->child as $child) {
var_dump($child);
}
?>

does not print anything while

<?php
$root = simplexml_load_string('
<root>
<child />
<child />
</root>
');

foreach ($root->child as $child) {
var_dump($child);
}
?>

correctly prints

object(simplexml_element)#2 (0) {
}
object(simplexml_element)#3 (0) {
}

--
Sebastian Bergmann
http://sebastian-bergmann.de/ http://phpOpenTracker.de/

Das Buch zu PHP 5: http://professionelle-softwareentwicklung-mit-php5.de/

We can (and I think we should) solve the attribute/child node ambiguity
using the new array-syntax overloading, i.e., use $root['child'] for the
attribute, and $root->child for nested elements. We should definitely stay
away from having to use functions, either way.

As for the array behavior, it's trickier, we need to think about it. Using
an object that can cast itself to an array and implements the 'get' method
(to fetch its value) may be the right answer.

Zeev

At 02:29 05/09/2003, Shane Caraveo wrote:

The problem is one of simplicity ;)
I ran into the same problem a couple days ago. In the two examples, an
array of element 'child' is expected. That array may be one or more
elements. SimpleXML turns multiple children of the same element name into
array's, but a single child is not. I'm not sure what the right answere
is for it though, other than conditionaly checking for a single child.

There's a part of me that thinks that children should be accessed via a
function, but then you start getting dom-like:

$root->childNodes()[0]

and it always works. It also prevents problems with something like:

<root child="test"> <child>abcd</child> </root>

Shane

Sterling Hughes wrote:

Zeev seems to be working on foreach and simplexml, but the above
behaviour is the correct one. Why should the first loop? If I did:
<?php
foreach ("hello" as $world) {
var_dump($world);
}
?>
what would i get?
-Sterling

The following script

<?php
$root = simplexml_load_string('
<root>
<child />
</root>
');

foreach ($root->child as $child) {
var_dump($child);
}
?>

does not print anything while

<?php
$root = simplexml_load_string('
<root>
<child />
<child />
</root>
');

foreach ($root->child as $child) {
var_dump($child);
}
?>

correctly prints

object(simplexml_element)#2 (0) {
}
object(simplexml_element)#3 (0) {
}

-- Sebastian Bergmann
http://sebastian-bergmann.de/ http://phpOpenTracker.de/

Das Buch zu PHP 5: http://professionelle-softwareentwicklung-mit-php5.de/