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phpxmlsimplexml

Change Value of Current Child - SimpleXML PHP

The setup is quite simple. How do you use the children() iterating function of SimpleXML and then modify the value of the current node? Here's a scenario below:

<Ad>
  <Unit>Value</Unit>
  <Size>Value</Size>
  <Time>Value</Time>
</Ad>

I'm trying to use children() and then to assign to the current Child to change "Value" in all of the above nodes.

foreach ($parent->children() as $child){
  $child= "New Value"; // Proper way to access $child's value without overwriting the entire object???
}

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I understand you can simply do the following:

$parent->Unit = "New Value";

I'm asking specifically in the case of using the children() method, how can you access the value of the current child object?

Solution

  • When a SimpleXMLElement represents a single element (rather than a collection of elements with the same name), index [0] can be used as a self-reference.

    Writing to that self-reference uses the overloaded assignment that you can use in other contexts to set the text content of a node.

    So the code you are looking for is as simple as:

    foreach ($parent->children() as $child) {
    $child[0] = "New Value";
}