PHP | XMLReader open() Function

Last Updated : 18 Mar, 2020

The XMLReader::open() function is an inbuilt function in PHP which is used to set the URI containing the XML document to be parsed. In simple words, this function is used to open the XML file which needs to be worked upon.

Syntax:

bool XMLReader::open( string $URI, string $encoding, int $options )

Parameters: This function accept three parameters as mentioned above and described below:

$URI: It specifies the URI pointing to the document.
$encoding (Optional): It specifies the document encoding or NULL.
$options (Optional): It specifies the bitmask.

Return Value: This function returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Exceptions: This function throws an E_STRICT error, if called statically.

Below examples illustrate the XMLReader::open() function in PHP:

Example 1:

data.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<body>

<h1 attrib="value"> Hello </h1>

</body>

index.php

<?php 
  
// Create a new XMLReader instance 
$XMLReader = new XMLReader(); 
  
// Load the XML file 
$XMLReader->open('data.xml'); 
  
// Iterate through the XML 
while ($XMLReader->read()) { 
    if ($XMLReader->nodeType == XMLREADER::ELEMENT) { 
  
        // Get the value of first attribute 
        $value = $XMLReader->getAttributeNo(0); 
  
        // Output the value to browser 
        echo $value . "<br>"; 
    } 
} 
?> 

Output:
```
value
```

Program 2:

data.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<body>

<h1> GeeksforGeeks </h1>

</body>

index.php

<?php 
  
// Create a new XMLReader instance 
$XMLReader = new XMLReader(); 
  
// Load the XML file 
$XMLReader->open('data.xml'); 
  
// Move to the first node 
$XMLReader->read(); 
  
// Read it as a string 
$string = $XMLReader->readString(); 
  
// Output the string to the browser 
echo $string; 
?> 