SimpleXML, selecting node using child index with bracket syntax - php

Question

I'm using SimpleXML to pull in a XML feed. I need to grab the second node with the same name.
Feed example is:
<parent-node>
<child-node>
<the-node>
<the-target>Text</target>
</the-node>
<the-node>
<the-target>Text</target>
</the-node>
</child-node>
</parent-node>
Since the nodes I am targeting use hyphens, I need to use bracket syntax
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}
This will grab the first <the-node>
When using the bracket syntax, I cannot select the second <the-node>'s <the-target> using any of the following...
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node[2]'}->{'the-target'}
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'[2]}->{'the-target'}
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[2]->{'the-target'}
My question is, how do I target childIndex while using the bracket syntax to grab the second <the-node>'s <target>?
--- UPDATES ---
After some of the answers, I have tried the following with no luck
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[1]->{'the-target'}
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}->{'the-target'}[1]
$item->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}->{'the-target'}[1]

Answer 1

SimpleXMLElement stores sibling nodes as if they were an array. This usually indicates that the values are stored with a 0-based index, ie. the first value in the array starts at index 0.
So in this case, the 2nd sibling node is only accessible using the index 1 instead of 2.
Also the root-level node does not have to be traversed into by default (unless you omitted some other XML or are using some non-default settings).
Try this:
// Will grab the 2nd <the-node/>
$node = $item->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[1];
Depending on if your initial code did work without the array access, you can try this too:
// Testing locally I was not able to use this and got an error
// But maybe things are omitted in your question.
$node = $item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[1];

Answer 2

The correct syntax looks like the following:
$item->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[0]; // First the-node
$item->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[1]; // Second the-node
If parent-node is the root element of all others, you cannot access it explicitly.
$item->{'parent-node'}->{'child-node'}->{'the-node'}[0];
The above code will result in error saying "Trying to get property of non-object".
Since parent-node is the top root element, you cannot access it explicitly.
Only the immediate child element of the top root element will be available to access in the SimpleXMLElement object.