Pull XML nodeValue into php Variable

Question

I am trying to assign the <all> / <avg> value in this XML code to a variable, so that I can use it for calculations. But when I do this, and try to print the value, I get a blank screen. Can someone please help?

<stats>
    <type id="a">
        <buy>
            <volume>698299009</volume>
            <avg>17.94</avg>
            <max>18.45</max>
            <min>1.00</min>     
        </buy>
        <sell>
            <volume>16375234</volume>
            <avg>21.03</avg>
            <max>24.99</max>
            <min>20.78</min>        
        </sell>
        <all>
            <volume>714674243</volume>
            <avg>18.01</avg>
            <max>24.99</max>
            <min>1.00</min>     
        </all>
    </type>
</stats>

The php code I am using is as follows:

$xml = simplexml_load_file("values.xml");

$unit_value = $xml->xpath("/stats/type[@id='a']/buy/avg/")->nodeValue;

echo $unit_value;

Answer 1

xpath returns an array of SimpleXMLElement objects .. so you can do this :

$unit_value = $xml->xpath("//stats//type[@id='a']//buy//avg");
echo (string)$unit_value[0]; // cast to string not required

Working example here

or if you are using PHP => 5.4 you can do this :

$unit_value = $xml->xpath("//stats//type[@id='a']//buy//avg")[0];
echo $unit_value; 

Working example here