Remove XML child with same name - php

Question

I have a large XML with the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<valasz xmlns="" verzio="1.0">
<arak>
<ar>
<cikkid>439902</cikkid>
<cikkszam>DVDV-16Z10</cikkszam>
<listaar>1225,0000000</listaar>
<ar>1157,6200000</ar>
<akcios_ar>1157,6200000</akcios_ar>
<devizanem>HUF</devizanem>
</ar>
<ar>
..
<ar>1157,6200000</ar>
...
</ar>
</arak>
What i want is to remove arak->ar->ar child because its causing in the import it looks like duplicates, and slowing down the process.
I have tried the following:
$node = readfile($arlista[0]);
$nodes = simplexml_load_string($node);
$arnode = $nodes->xpath("/valasz/arak/ar/ar");
foreach ($arnode as &$ar){
$nodes->removeChild($ar);
}
echo $nodes;
And this only returns me the original xml, without removing the arak->ar->ar child nodes.
What am i doing wrong?

Answer 1

There is no such thing as ::removeChild() in SimpleXML.
What you want do do in your foreach loop is this:
foreach ($arnode as $ar){
unset($ar->{0});
}
Please note: The posted XML is not valid but I am sure that is just some kind of copy&paste flaw
Complete code:
$xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<valasz xmlns="" verzio="1.0">
<arak>
<ar>
<cikkid>439902</cikkid>
<cikkszam>DVDV-16Z10</cikkszam>
<listaar>1225,0000000</listaar>
<ar>1157,6200000</ar>
<akcios_ar>1157,6200000</akcios_ar>
<devizanem>HUF</devizanem>
</ar>
<ar>
<ar>1157,6200000</ar>
</ar>
</arak>
</valasz>';
$nodes = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$arnode = $nodes->xpath("/valasz/arak/ar/ar");
foreach ($arnode as $ar){
unset($ar->{0});
}
print_r($nodes);
Returns this
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[#attributes] => Array
(
[verzio] => 1.0
)
[arak] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[ar] => Array
(
[0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[cikkid] => 439902
[cikkszam] => DVDV-16Z10
[listaar] => 1225,0000000
[akcios_ar] => 1157,6200000
[devizanem] => HUF
)
[1] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
)
)
)
)