PHP and XML

XML is a markup language that looks a lot like HTML. An XML document is plain text and contains tags delimited by < and >

HTML list that is not valid XML

<ul>
   <li>list item one
   <li>list item two
   <li>list item three
</ul>

HTML list that is valid XML

<ul>
   <li>list item one</li>
   <li>list item two</li>
   <li>list item three</li>
</ul>

Parsing an XML Document using PHP5

<?php

   $channel =<<<_XML_
   <channel>
      <title>What's For Today's Dinner<title>
      <link>https://menu.example.com/<link>
      <description>Choose what to eat :</description>
   </channel>
   _XML_;
   
   $xml = simplexml_load_string($channel);
   print "The $xml->title channel is available at $xml->link. ";
   print "The description is \"$xml->description\"";
?>

It will produce the following result:

The What's For Today's Dinner channel is available at https://menu.example.com/. The description is "Choose what to eat :"