SimpleXMLElement::xpath

    (PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    SimpleXMLElement::xpath — Runs XPath query on XML data

    Description

    publicSimpleXMLElement::xpath(string$expression): array|null|false

    The xpath method searches the SimpleXML node for children matching the XPathexpression.

    Parameters

    expression

    An XPath path

    Return Values

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

    Examples

    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);


    $result = $xml->xpath('/a/b/c');

    foreach (    $result as $node) {
    echo     '/a/b/c: ',$node,"\n";
    }


    $result = $xml->xpath('b/c');

    foreach (    $result as $node) {
    echo     'b/c: ',$node,"\n";
    }
    ?>

    The above example will output:

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

    Notice that the two results are equal.

    See Also

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