How to enable XMLReader in PHP without reconfiguring PHP?

Question

My PHP info has this:

Configure Command : '--with-libxml-dir=/usr' 
                    '--enable-xml' 
                    '--disable-xmlreader' 
                    '--disable-xmlwriter' 

i.e. my xmlwriter & xmlreader have not been enabled during installation.

                               libxml 

libXML support                       active

libXML Compiled Version        2.7.8

libXML Loaded Version           20708

libXML streams                       enabled

from php.net manual for XMLReader

Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in php.ini.

How do I enable XMLReader? / Do I have have to compile my PHP again with --enable-xmlreader?

Answer 1

I found a workaround:

First Install the package php-xml for my system: php-xml.x86_64

Package description: php-xml.x86_64 : A module for PHP applications which use XML

Install the above mentioned package(respective to your system) to enable XMLReader, XMLWriter.

php -i

has this now:

'--with-libxml-dir=/usr' 
'--enable-xml' 
'--enable-xmlreader=shared' 
'--enable-xmlwriter=shared'

I have also tested whether the package is enabled by creating an object of XMLReader.
But, I think I will be going with SimpleXML because I have to read very small xml files & because of its lower memory consumption. Read here.