PHP Manual: SimpleXMLElement->xpath()

SimpleXMLElement->xpath()

(no version information, might be only in CVS)

SimpleXMLElement->xpath() -- Runs XPath query on XML data

Description

class SimpleXMLElement {

array xpath ( string path )

}

The xpath method searches the SimpleXML node for children matching the XPath path. It always returns an array of SimpleXMLElement objects.

Example 1. Xpath

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

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);

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

while(list( , $node) = each($result)) {
    echo '/a/b/c: ',$node,"\n";
}

/* Relative paths also work... */
$result = $xml->xpath('b/c');

while(list( , $node) = each($result)) {
    echo 'b/c: ',$node,"\n";
}
?>

This script will display:

/a/b/c: text
/a/b/c: stuff
b/c: text
b/c: stuff

Notice that the two results are equal.