php/ext/simplexml/README

SimpleXML is meant to be an easy way to access XML data.

SimpleXML objects follow four basic rules:

1) properties denote elements
2) numeric indices denote elements
3) non numeric indices denote attributes
4) string conversion allows to access TEXT data

When an elements TEXT data is being accessed through a property
then the result does not include the TEXT data of subelements.

If PHP is compiled with ext/SPL being compiled into the binary
then SimpleXML objects implement the interface RecursiveIterator 
so that they can be iterated recursively (http://pecl.php.net/spl).

Known issues
============

Due to engine problems it is currently not possible to access
a subelement by index 0: $object->property[0].

TODO
====

At the moment property access to multiple elements of the same
name returns an array of SimpleXML objetcs. This should be an 
object of a new type instead so that all kinds of linkage,
assignment and deleting would work.