<?php
$str = <<<XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<note>
<book>
<category>COOKING</category>
<title>Everyday Italian</title>
<author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>30.00</price>
</book>
<book>
<category>CHILDREN</category>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
<book>
<category>WEB</category>
<title>Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</book> <news>
<category>CHILDREN</category>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</news>
<news>
<category>WEB</category>
<title>Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</news> <blog>
<category>CHILDREN</category>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</blog>
<blog>
<category>WEB</category>
<title>Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</blog>
</note>
XML; $strObj = simplexml_load_string($str);
$json = json_encode($strObj);
$ary = json_decode($json, true); echo '<pre>';
print_r($ary);
echo '</pre>';