(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
SimpleXMLElement::xpath — Runs XPath query on XML data
$expression): array|null|false
The xpath method searches the SimpleXML node for
children matching the XPath expression.
expressionAn XPath path
Returns an array of SimpleXMLElement objects on success; or null or false in
case of an error.
Example #1 Xpath
<?php
$string = <<<XML
<a>
<b>
<c>text</c>
<c>stuff</c>
</b>
<d>
<c>code</c>
</d>
</a>
XML;
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($string);
/* Search for <a><b><c> */
$result = $xml->xpath('/a/b/c');
while(list( , $node) = each($result)) {
echo '/a/b/c: ',$node,"\n";
}
/* Relative paths also work... */
$result = $xml->xpath('b/c');
while(list( , $node) = each($result)) {
echo 'b/c: ',$node,"\n";
}
?>
The above example will output:
/a/b/c: text /a/b/c: stuff b/c: text b/c: stuff
Notice that the two results are equal.