SimpleXMLElement::asXML

(PHP 5 >= 5.0.1, PHP 7)

Return a well-formed XML string based on SimpleXML element

public mixed SimpleXMLElement::asXML ([ string $filename ] )

The asXML method formats the parent object's data in XML version 1.0.

Parameters:

filename

If specified, the function writes the data to the file rather than returning it.

Returns:

If the filename isn't specified, this function returns a string on success and FALSE on error. If the parameter is specified, it returns TRUE if the file was written successfully and FALSE otherwise.

Examples:

Get XML

<?php
$string = <<<XML
<a>
 <b>
  <c>text</c>
  <c>stuff</c>
 </b>
 <d>
  <c>code</c>
 </d>
</a>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);

echo $xml->asXML();

?>

The above example will output:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<a>
 <b>
  <c>text</c>
  <c>stuff</c>
 </b>
 <d>
  <c>code</c>
 </d>
</a>

Using asXML() on SimpleXMLElement::xpath() results

asXML also works on Xpath results:

<?php
// Continued from example XML above.

/* Search for <a><b><c> */
$result = $xml->xpath('/a/b/c');

while(list( , $node) = each($result)) {
    echo $node->asXML();
}
?>

The above example will output:

<c>text</c><c>stuff</c>