Reading XML file - strange PHP object notation - php

Question

I have a XML file simillar to this :
<information version="2">
<currentTime>2014-06-06 17:28:16</currentTime>
<result>
<name>Mark</name>
<surname>Smith</surname>
</result>
I read it with php function and parse it to the object with function, like this:
function parse_data($data){
$return_data['currentTime'] = $data->currentTime;
$return_data['name'] = $data->result->name;
$return_data['surname'] = $data->result->surname;
return $return_data;
}
$xml = simplexml_load_string(file_get_contents($link));
$object = parse_data($xml);
Then, when I echo it on the screen, to check how it look:
//json_encode($xml);
{
"#attributes":{"version":"2"},
"currentTime":"2014-06-06 17:28:16",
"result":{"name":"Mark","surname":"Smith"}
}
//print_r($xml);
SimpleXMLElement Object (
[#attributes] => Array ( [version] => 2 )
[currentTime] => 2014-06-06 17:56:30
[result] => SimpleXMLElement Object (
[name] => Mark
[surname] => Smith
)
)
//json_encode($object);
{
"currentTime":{"0":"2014-06-06 17:28:16"},
"name":{"0":"Mark"},
"surname":{"0":"Smith"}
}
//print_r($object);
Array (
[currentTime] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => 2014-06-06 17:52:50 )
[name] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => Mark)
[surname] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => Smith )
)
What is wrong with my code? He seems to read the informaton in xml file as array? Because of this strange notation I cannont operate on this data normally.
It also behave like this:
echo json_encode($object['name']); will give -> {"0":"Mark"}
echo $object['name']; will give -> Mark
Can anybody help me? What am I doing wrong?
I want my $object to look like this:
//json_encode($object);
{
"currentTime":"2014-06-06 17:28:16",
"name":"Mark",
"surname":"Smith"
}
Edit1: added print_r values

Answer 1

Yes, as you have noticed the type returned by $someSimpleXMLNode is an object. If you want the node value (as a string for example) use:
$return_data['currentTime'] = (string)$data->currentTime;
which is the same as doing
$return_data['currentTime'] = $data->currentTime->__toString();
etc
When you do
echo $data->currentTime;
the node is automatically coerced into a string (because echo only handles strings). This is done (generally, in php) by the object's __toString method.