12.3.2 Reading from a stringThis is NOT the latest copy of this book; click here for the latest version.
While simplexml_load_file() loads XML data from a file, simplexml_load_string() loads XML data from a string. This is generally not as useful, but it does allow you to easily load several XML files into one string, then use that inside one SimpleXML structure.
Take a look at the following script:
<?php
$employees = <<<EOT
<employees>
<employee ID="2" FOO="BAR">
<name>Anthony Clarke</name>
<title>Chief Information Officer</title>
<age>48</age>
</employee>
<employee ID="2" BAZ="WOM">
<name>Laura Pollard</name>
<title>Chief Executive Officer</title>
<age>54</age>
</employee>
</employees>
EOT;
$employees = simplexml_load_string($employees);
foreach ($employees->employee as $employee) {
print "{$employee->name} is {$employee->title} at age {$employee->age}\n";
}
?>
As you can see, the majority of the script is just there heredoc-style string assignment that sets up the XML. Then, with a call to simplexml_load_string(), the XML is parsed into the $employees object, just as with the simplexml_load_file() function. The resulting object is no different, as can be seen with the output from the foreach loop.
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