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Parsing Xml with the Xml class requires you to have a string containing the xml you wish to parse.

$input = '<' . '?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?' . '>
    <container>
        <element id="first-el">
            <name>My element</name>
            <size>20</size>
        </element>
        <element>
            <name>Your element</name>
            <size>30</size>
        </element>
    </container>';
$xml = new Xml($input);

1. $input = '<' . '?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?' . '>
2. <container>
3. <element id="first-el">
4. <name>My element</name>
5. <size>20</size>
6. </element>
7. <element>
8. <name>Your element</name>
9. <size>30</size>
10. </element>
11. </container>';
12. $xml = new Xml($input);

This would create an Xml document object that can then be manipulated and traversed, and reconverted back into a string.

With the sample above you could do the following.

echo $xml->children[0]->children[0]->name;
// outputs 'element'

echo $xml->children[0]->children[0]->children[0]->children[0]->value;
// outputs 'My Element'

echo $xml->children[0]->child('element')->attributes['id'];
//outputs 'first-el'

1. echo $xml->children[0]->children[0]->name;
2. // outputs 'element'
3. echo $xml->children[0]->children[0]->children[0]->children[0]->value;
4. // outputs 'My Element'
5. echo $xml->children[0]->child('element')->attributes['id'];
6. //outputs 'first-el'

In addition to the above it often makes it easier to obtain data from XML if you convert the Xml document object to a array.

$xml = new Xml($input);
// This converts the Xml document object to a formatted array
$xmlAsArray = Set::reverse($xml);
// Or you can convert simply by calling toArray();
$xmlAsArray = $xml->toArray();

1. $xml = new Xml($input);
2. // This converts the Xml document object to a formatted array
3. $xmlAsArray = Set::reverse($xml);
4. // Or you can convert simply by calling toArray();
5. $xmlAsArray = $xml->toArray();