Adding encoding to an xml file for SimpleXml?

Question

I have an external xml file which I have to pick up, no encoding is set but I have discovered it it's payload is encoded ISO-8859-1.

I know this because if I manually edit the file to encoding="ISO-8859-1" then it is processed as expected.

Can I tell simplexml what encoding to deal with as I instantiate the simplexml object?

Addendum

Because the xml file was so dirty I might end up using xmllint - posting here for anyone else interested - format so it is indented, set encoding where it did not exist and clean up bad entities (& and so on)

xmllint --format --encode iso-8859-1 -o cleansed.xml dirty.xml

A guy in the comments on this page: php.net/manual/en/ref.simplexml.php confirms the issue, but doesn't offer a solution. Don't think there is one in simplexml. I think your best bet would be @JacobRas's DOM Document answer. — Robin Winslow
– Robin Winslow, Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 20:55

Jacob Ras · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-21 20:49:13Z

2

You can set the encoding for a DomDocument and then convert it to simplexml by using simplexml_import_dom():

$dom = new DomDocument('1.0', 'iso-8559-1');
$dom->load('externalfile.xml');

if (!$dom) {
    echo 'Parsing error';
    exit;
}

$s = simplexml_import_dom($dom);

answered Aug 21, 2011 at 20:49

Jacob Ras

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2 Comments

Robin Winslow Over a year ago

Niiice. I was gonna suggest editing the XML string through preg_replace but this is much neater.

Cups Over a year ago

This only works if the Dom ext is installed - anyhow I found so many other xml anomolies, that I likely will adopt Robin Winslows solution.

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