Today, I need to convert XML file into associative array to store in variable. So I have done a lot of googling and found several methods/views and library to convert XML object into Array, but in stack overflow – I have found below simple script to convert xml into array.I am using file_get_contents() php method to read xml file data into string.

Also checkout other related tutorials,

• Convert XML to Array in PHP Using XML2Array
• How To Convert XSD into Array Using PHP
• How To Convert XML To Associative Array

In this tutorial, I will let you know how to convert XML into array in php.

Step 1: Sample XML file

I have created below xml sample.xml file, which will use to convert into array using PHP.

Step 2: Convert sample.xml File Into String
Now, I will use file_get_contents() PHP method to read entire file into a string and store into $xmlfile variable.

Step 3: Convert string of XML into an Object,
We have xml file as an string, So Let’s convert this xml string into Objects.I will use simplexml_load_string() php method to convert string of XML into an object.

Step 4: Encode XML Object Into JSON
I will encode XML object into JSON, below code will convert xml object into json string.

Step 5: Decode Json Object
Finally we will decode json to get array from json string.

Full Source Code