XML - getting value from namespace using SimpleXML

I'm having an issue getting at a particular namespace value using Simple XML.

Here's a snippet from the XML file:

<message xmlns:blend="http://www.blendlabs.com"
 xmlns:ulad="http://www.datamodelextension.org/Schema/ULAD"
 xmlns="http://www.mismo.org/residential/2009/schemas"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
 targetnamespace="http://www.mismo.org/residential/2009/schemas">
  <deal_sets>
    <deal_set>
      <deals>
        <deal>
          <loans>
            <loan loanroletype="SubjectLoan" sequencenumber="1" xlink:label="LOAN_1">
              <extension>
                <other>
                  <blend:loan xlink:label="LOAN_1_BLEND_EXTENSION">
                    <blend:marketing_items>
                      <blend:marketing_item>
                        <blend:marketingtypevalue>DirectMarketingCode</blend:marketingtypevalue>
                        <blend:marketingvalue>google.com</blend:marketingvalue>
                      </blend:marketing_item>
                    </blend:marketing_items>
                  </blend:loan>
                </other>
              </extension>
            </loan>
          </loans>
        </deal>
      </deals>
    </deal_set>
  </deal_sets>
</message>

The value I'm trying to get would be google.com from the blend:marketingvalue field at the end of the snippet.

I can access non-namespace values just fine but I don't really get how to access the nested namespace values for the blend fields.

Here is the code I am try to use:

$xml  = simplexml_load_string($body);
        
$blend = $xml->children('http://www.blendlabs.com');
        
$marketing_value = $xml->DEAL_SETS->DEAL_SET->DEALS->DEAL->LOANS->LOAN->EXTENSION->OTHER->$blend->LOAN->MARKETING_ITEMS->MARKETING_ITEM->MARKETINGVALUE;

echo $marketing_value; // just echo's nothing currently.

So I guess my question is, how do you format it to access nested objects?

Do I need to put the $blend variable in front of each object item?

Is that even how you are supposed to use the children function?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Solution

The children() method doesn't return some kind of token for the namespace, it returns a list of elements - the children which are in the given namespace.

The $xml variable represents the top-level message element, which doesn't have any children in the http://www.blendlabs.com namespace, so $xml->children('http://www.blendlabs.com') will just return an empty list. You need to first navigate to the other element, and then get its children in the http://www.blendlabs.com namespace, which will include the loan element.

Since the top level element is in the http://www.mismo.org/residential/2009/schemas namespace, you might need an extra children() call to make sure you select that first.

You didn't provide a complete XML, so I can't test the code (I don't fancy manually writing all those close tags), but it will look something like this:

$marketing_value = (string)
   $xml
   ->children('http://www.mismo.org/residential/2009/schemas')
   ->deal_sets->deal_set->deals->deal->loans->loan->extension->other
   ->children('http://www.blendlabs.com')
   ->loan->marketing_items->marketing_item->marketingvalue;