How To Read XML file in PHP (SimpleXML)

Written by Rahul, Updated on August 26, 2019

SimpleXML is a PHP extension introduced with PHP 5. It allows users to easily handle XML data in PHP. SimpleXML converts any XML data to an object which can be easily processed with normal property selectors and array iterators.

You must have installed php-simplexml extension on your system to use examples of this tutorial.

A Sample XML File

Here is a sample XML file used for this tutorial. The XML filename is employees.xml which you will see in further examples of this tutorial.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<company>
	<employee>
		<firstname>Tom</firstname>
		<lastname>Cruise</lastname>
		<designation>MD</designation>
		<salary>500000</salary>
	</employee>
	<employee>
		<firstname>Tyler</firstname>
		<lastname>Horne</lastname>
		<designation>CEO</designation>
		<salary>250000</salary>
	</employee>
</company>

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<lastname>Cruise</lastname>

</employee>

<firstname>Tyler</firstname>

<lastname>Horne</lastname>

</employee>

</company>

Read Specific XML Elements

Use simplexml_load_file function to load external XML file in your PHP program and create an object. After that, you can access any element from the XML by this object as follows.

<?php
  $xmldata = simplexml_load_file("employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");
  echo $xmldata->employee[0]->firstname . "<\n>";
  echo $xmldata->employee[1]->firstname; 
?>

<?php

$xmldata = simplexml_load_file("employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");

echo $xmldata->employee[0]->firstname . "<\n>";

echo $xmldata->employee[1]->firstname;

Output:

Tom
Tyler

If the XML file is available on the remote server, you can use HTTP URL for the XML file as followings:

<?php
  $xmldata = simplexml_load_file("https://tecadmin.net/employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");
  echo $xmldata->employee[0]->firstname . "<\n>";
  echo $xmldata->employee[1]->firstname; 
?>

<?php

$xmldata = simplexml_load_file("https://tecadmin.net/employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");

echo $xmldata->employee[0]->firstname . "<\n>";

echo $xmldata->employee[1]->firstname;

Read XML Elements In A Loop

In this example, we use the foreach method to iterate through the entire XML file and read elements from XML. Foreach loop access all children of an object.

<?php
$xmldata = simplexml_load_file("employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");
foreach($xmldata->children() as $empl) {         
	echo $empl->firstname . ", ";     
	echo $empl->lastname . ", ";     
	echo $empl->designation . ", ";        
	echo $empl->salary . "<\n>"; 
} 
?>

<?php

$xmldata = simplexml_load_file("employees.xml") or die("Failed to load");

foreach($xmldata->children() as $empl) {

echo $empl->firstname . ", ";

echo $empl->lastname . ", ";

echo $empl->designation . ", ";

echo $empl->salary . "<\n>";

}

Output:

Tom, Cruise, MD, 500000
Tyler, Horne, CEO, 250000

How To Read XML file in PHP (SimpleXML)

A Sample XML File

Read Specific XML Elements

Read XML Elements In A Loop

Rahul

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