SimpleXMLElement using a string - php

Question

I want to create a new SimpleXMLElement with data . When I put the data from the link below in the code I get the next error: Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'String could not be parsed as XML
The encoded data can be found here:http://www.interwebmedia.nl/dataxi/base64.txt
decoded data: http://www.interwebmedia.nl/dataxi/data.txt
<?php
str = 'encodeddata';
//echo htmlspecialchars(base64_decode($str),ENT_QUOTES);
$decoded = htmlspecialchars(base64_decode($str),ENT_QUOTES);
$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($decode);
echo $xml->asXML();
?>

Answer 1

I think you've attempted to use HEREDOC syntax (or seen somebody else using it) but completely misunderstood it.
HEREDOC syntax is an alternative way of quoting a string, instead of " or '. It's useful for hard-coding blocks of XML, because it acts like double-quotes, but let's you use double-quotes inside, like this:
$my_xml_string = <<<XML
<some_xml>
<with multiple_lines="here" />
</some_xml>
XML;
That code is precisely equivalent to this:
$my_xml_string = "
<some_xml>
<with multiple_lines=\"here\" />
</some_xml>
";
What you have done instead is taken the literal string "<<<" and added it onto your XML, giving you a string like this:
$my_xml_string = "<<<XML
<some_xml>
<with multiple_lines=\"here\" />
</some_xml>
XML";
Or in your example, the string "<<<XML<data>XML".
As far as the XML parser's concerned, you've just put a load of garbage on the beginning and end of the string, so it rightly complains it's not a valid XML document.