How to parse an XML ignoring errors with SimpleXML

Question

Often my .xml document contains errors. I would want to parse my document anyway up to errors or try to fix errors automatically. Is that possible?

I have tried this, but it isn't working

  $xml = simplexml_load_file($url, "SimpleXMLElement", array(LIBXML_NOERROR, LIBXML_ERR_NONE));

    if (!$xml) {
        echo "Failed loading XML\n";
        foreach(libxml_get_errors() as $error) {
            echo "\t", $error->message;
        }
    }

Answer 1

From PHP DOC simplexml_load_file options should be int not array

Replace

$xml = simplexml_load_file($url, "SimpleXMLElement", array(LIBXML_NOERROR, LIBXML_ERR_NONE));
                                                       ^------- You are using array

With

$xml = simplexml_load_file($url, "SimpleXMLElement", LIBXML_NOERROR |  LIBXML_ERR_NONE);

Instead of suppressing this errors you can as well fix the xml with Tidy package.

Example bad.xml

<Family>
    <name>Hankre</name>
    <adults>2</adults>
    <kids > 16 </kids>
    <food>
        <tag>Nice </tag>
        <tag>Food </tag>
        <tag />

Fix XML

$config = array(
    'indent' => true,
    'clean' => true,
    'input-xml'  => true,
    'output-xml' => true,
    'wrap'       => false
    );

$tidy = new Tidy();
$xml = $tidy->repairfile($badXML, $config);
echo $xml;

Output

<Family>
    <name>Hankre</name>
    <adults>2</adults>
    <kids>16</kids>
    <food>
        <tag>Nice</tag>
        <tag>Food</tag>
        <tag />
    </food>
</Family>