PHP - simplexml_load_string doesn't work as expected - php

Question

When converting xml to object, everything seems fine according to print_r($result);. But if I use $result->title it returns object instead of string and when looping $result->documents it gets really strange..
$xml = '<return>
<id>65510</id>
<title>SMART</title>
<info/>
<documents>
<name>file_1.pdf</name>
<path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_1.pdf</path>
</documents>
<documents>
<name>file_2.pdf</name>
<path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_2.pdf</path>
</documents>
<documents>
<name>file_3.pdf</name>
<path>http://www.domain.com/documents/file_3.pdf</path>
</documents>
</return>';
$result = simplexml_load_string($xml);
print_r($result); /* returns:
SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[id] => 65510
[title] => SMART
[info] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
)
[documents] => Array
(
[0] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[name] => file_1.pdf
[path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_1.pdf
)
[1] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[name] => file_2.pdf
[path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_2.pdf
)
[2] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[name] => file_3.pdf
[path] => http://www.domain.com/documents/file_3.pdf
)
)
)
*/
$_VALUE['title'] = $result->title;
print_r($_VALUE); /* returns:
Array
(
[title] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[0] => SMART
)
)
*/
foreach ($result->documents as $key=>$value) {
echo $key . "<br/>";
} /* returns:
documents
documents
documents
instead of returning:
1
2
3
*/
I need $result->title to return string and $result->documents to be an array with indexes 1,2,3.

Answer 1

There are difference between print_r and echo in this context. Instead Print try echo
echo (string) $result->title;
It will work and output as SMART
and array
$p = 1;
foreach ($result->documents as $value) {
echo $value->name . "<br/>";
//for key
echo $p++.'</br>';
}