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# simplexml_load_file

(PHP 5)

simplexml_load_file -- Interprets an XML file into an object

## Description

object simplexml_load_file ( string filename [, string class_name [, int options [, string ns [, bool is_prefix]]]] )

This function will convert the well-formed XML document in the file specified by filename to an object of class SimpleXMLElement. If any errors occur during file access or interpretation, the function returns `FALSE`.

You may use the optional class_name parameter so that simplexml_load_file() will return an object of the specified class. That class should extend the SimpleXMLElement class.

Since PHP 5.1.0 and Libxml 2.6.0, you may also use the options parameter to specify additional Libxml parameters.

> Note: Libxml 2 unescapes the URI, so if you want to pass e.g. b&c as the URI parameter a, you have to call simplexml_load_file(rawurlencode('http://example.com/?a=' . urlencode('b&c'))). Since PHP 5.1.0 you don't need to do this because PHP will do it for you.

Example 1. Interpret an XML document

`<?php // The file test.xml contains an XML document with a root element // and at least an element /[root]/title. if (file_exists('test.xml')) { $xml = simplexml_load_file('test.xml'); var_dump($xml); } else { exit('Failed to open test.xml.'); } ?>`

This script will display, on success:

    SimpleXMLElement Object
    (
      [title] => Example Title
      ...
    )

At this point, you can go about using $xml->title and any other elements.

## See Also

simplexml_load_string
SimpleXMLElement->__construct()

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