PHP Manual: Interprets an XML file into an object

Description

SimpleXMLElement simplexml_load_file ( string $filename [, string $class_name = "SimpleXMLElement" [, int $options = 0 [, string $ns = "" [, bool $is_prefix = false ]]]] )

Convert the well-formed XML document in the given file to an object.

Parameters

filename: Path to the XML file

Note:
Libxml 2 unescapes the URI, so if you want to pass e.g. b&c as the URI parameter a, you have to call simplexml_load_file(rawurlencode('http://example.com/?a=' . urlencode('b&c'))). Since PHP 5.1.0 you don't need to do this because PHP will do it for you.
class_name: You may use this optional parameter so that simplexml_load_file will return an object of the specified class. That class should extend the SimpleXMLElement class.
options: Since PHP 5.1.0 and Libxml 2.6.0, you may also use the options parameter to specify additional Libxml parameters.
ns: Namespace prefix or URI.
is_prefix: TRUE if ns is a prefix, FALSE if it's a URI; defaults to FALSE.

Return Values

Returns an object of class SimpleXMLElement with properties containing the data held within the XML document, or FALSE on failure.

Errors/Exceptions

Produces an E_WARNING error message for each error found in the XML data.

Tip

Use libxml_use_internal_errors to suppress all XML errors, and libxml_get_errors to iterate over them afterwards.

Examples

Example #1 Interpret an XML document


<?php
// The file test.xml contains an XML document with a root element
// and at least an element /[root]/title.

if (file_exists('test.xml')) {
    $xml = simplexml_load_file('test.xml');
 
    print_r($xml);
} else {
    exit('Failed to open test.xml.');
}
?>

This script will display, on success:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
  [title] => Example Title
  ...
)

At this point, you can go about using $xml->title and any other elements.