A simple post for today. A HUGE thanks to @gaarf for his post! 
<?
/**
* convert xml string to php array - useful to get a serializable value
*
* @param string $xmlstr
* @return array
* @author Adrien aka Gaarf
*/
function xmlstr_to_array($xmlstr) {
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadXML($xmlstr);
return domnode_to_array($doc->documentElement);
}
function domnode_to_array($node) {
$output = array();
switch ($node->nodeType) {
case XML_CDATA_SECTION_NODE:
case XML_TEXT_NODE:
$output = trim($node->textContent);
break;
case XML_ELEMENT_NODE:
for ($i=0, $m=$node->childNodes->length; $i<$m; $i++) {
$child = $node->childNodes->item($i);
$v = domnode_to_array($child);
if(isset($child->tagName)) {
$t = $child->tagName;
if(!isset($output[$t])) {
$output[$t] = array();
}
$output[$t][] = $v;
}
elseif($v) {
$output = (string) $v;
}
}
if(is_array($output)) {
if($node->attributes->length) {
$a = array();
foreach($node->attributes as $attrName => $attrNode) {
$a[$attrName] = (string) $attrNode->value;
}
$output['@attributes'] = $a;
}
foreach ($output as $t => $v) {
if(is_array($v) && count($v)==1 && $t!='@attributes') {
$output[$t] = $v[0];
}
}
}
break;
}
return $output;
}
?>
