SimpleXML get node value

Question

Say I have this following XML structure:

    
        some value<         


        

Answer 1

Variant for xpath (Also how to get content of node having dashes in name):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <main>
<parent>
    <child-1>some value</child-1>
    <child-2>another value</child-2>
</parent> </main>

$xml = simplexml_load_string($content);
$node_value= (string)$xml->xpath('parent/child-1')[0];

result of $node_value:

"some value"

Answer 2

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xml);
$this->xmlcode = (string) $xml->parent[0]->child1;

Answer 3

A good example of using XPath with php for the SimpleXMLElement can be found here http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.simplexmlelement.php#95229

// Find the topmost element of the domDocument
$xpath = new DOMXPath($xml);
$child1 = $xpath->evaluate('/main/parent/child1')->item(0);