Access SimpleXML node value as string

Question

I have an object called $picasa_feed like this:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [guid] => https://picasaweb.google.com/data/entry/base/user/0000000000000000/albumid/0000000000000000?alt=rss&hl=en_US
    [pubDate] => Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:00:00 +0000
    [category] => http://schemas.google.com/photos/2007#album
    [title] => My Pictures
    [description] => ...
    [link] => https://picasaweb.google.com/0000000000000000/MyAlbum
    [author] => Me
)

I want to take put a property value into an element of an associative array:

$data_to_save['title'] = $picasa_feed->title;

When I do that the value of $data_to_save is

Array
(
    [title] => SimpleXMLElement Object
        (
            [0] => My Pictures
        )
}

What I want is

Array
(
    [title] => My Pictures
}

What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?

Ocramius · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13 21:00:45Z

1

Cast it to string:

$data_to_save['title'] = (string) $picasa_feed->title;

answered Feb 13, 2013 at 21:00

Ocramius

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Comments

Christian Kiewiet · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13 21:00:43Z

0

You want to invoke the SimpleXMLElement's magic __toString method by casting it to string. Try: $data_to_save['title'] = (string)$picasa_feed->title;

answered Feb 13, 2013 at 21:00

Christian Kiewiet

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2 Comments

George Over a year ago

Thanks to both of you. That did it! Is it always necessary to access object properties that way, or is it something particular to SimpleXMLElement?

Christian Kiewiet Over a year ago

Accessing the property of an object will yield whatever data type that property has. Due to the nested nature of XML, the SimpleXMLElement is just a collection of more SimpleXMLElements (nodes / children / [..]).

codebyren · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-13 21:02:58Z

0

This should work:

$data_to_save['title'] = (string) $picasa_feed->title;

answered Feb 13, 2013 at 21:02

codebyren

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