How to set attribute for nodes with text content? - php

Question

I am trying to iterate over set of nodes given by xpath and set certain attribute for each node. However it works only for nodes withou content or with empty (whitespace) content. I have tried 2 approaches but with the same result (maybe they are both the same on some deeper level, dunno). The commented line is the second approach.
$temp = simplexml_load_string (
'<toolbox>
<hammer/>
<screwdriver> </screwdriver>
<knife>
sharp
</knife>
</toolbox>' );
echo "vanilla toolbox: ";
print_r($temp);
$nodes = $temp->xpath('//*[not(#id)]');
foreach($nodes as $obj) {
$tempdom = dom_import_simplexml($obj);
$tempdom->setAttributeNode(new DOMAttr('id', 5));
//$obj->addAttribute('bagr', 5);
}
echo "processed toolbox: ";
print_r($temp);
This is output. Attribute id is missing in node knife.:
vanilla toolbox: SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[hammer] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
)
[screwdriver] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[0] =>
)
[knife] =>
sharp
)
processed toolbox: SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[#attributes] => Array
(
[id] => 5
)
[hammer] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[#attributes] => Array
(
[id] => 5
)
)
[screwdriver] => SimpleXMLElement Object
(
[#attributes] => Array
(
[id] => 5
)
[0] =>
)
[knife] =>
sharp

Answer 1

I'm unable to reproduce what you describe, the changed XML is:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<toolbox id="5">
<hammer id="5"/>
<screwdriver id="5"> </screwdriver>
<knife id="5">
sharp
</knife>
</toolbox>
Demo
It's exactly your code, maybe you're using a different LIBXML version? See the LIBXML_VERSION constant (codepad viper has 20626 (2.6.26)).
But probably it's just only the print_r output for a SimpleXMLElement object.
It does not output the attributes for the last element, even on a brand new object, but it's still possible to access the attribute. Demo.
You will see when you print_r($temp->knife['id']); that the attribute is set (as you can see in the earlier XML output).