PHP SimpleXMLElement problems with xml node - php

Question

I want to create an XML with the following structure:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<content>
<!-- content goes here -->
</content>
I originally created the xml node like this:
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<xml/>');
$content = $xml->addChild('content');
// add data to content
but that doesn't allow for adding attributes to the xml node, so now I do this:
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>'
.'<content></content>');
For some reason it doesn't work without adding the content node, but whatever, it gets the structure right.
Now, how do I assign the content node to a variable like I did above, so I can add data to it?

Answer 1

In your case the $xml variable is equal to the content node just try the following:
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>'
.'<content></content>');
$xml->addAttribute('Attribute', 'value');
$xml->addChild('node_name', 'value');
echo $xml->asXML();
this should print
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<content Attribute="value"><node_name>value</node_name></content>

Answer 2

E.g.
<?php
$content = new SimpleXMLElement('<content />');
$content['attr']='value';
echo $content->asXML();
prints
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<content attr="value"/>
--- edit:
To keep the encoding=utf-8:
$content = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<content />');

Answer 3

An XML document must have at least one element. That is the document element. In your question this is the content element.
You can create a SimpleXMLElement of it by just instantiating it with this minimum string:
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement('<content/>');
The variable $xml then represents that element. You can then...
... add attributes: $xml['attribute'] = 'value';
... set the content-text: $xml[0] = 'text';
... add child-elements: $xml->child = 'value';
This exemplary line-up then would have created the following XML (beautified, also: online demo):
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<content attribute="value">
text
<child>value</child>
</content>