function xmlToArray($xml, $options = array()) {$defaults = array('namespaceSeparator' => ':',//you may want this to be something other than a colon'attributePrefix' => '@', //to distinguish between attributes and nodes with the same name'alwaysArray' => array(), //array of xml tag names which should always become arrays'autoArray' => true,//only create arrays for tags which appear more than once'textContent' => '$', //key used for the text content of elements'autoText' => true, //skip textContent key if node has no attributes or child nodes'keySearch' => false, //optional search and replace on tag and attribute names'keyReplace' => false //replace values for above search values (as passed to str_replace()));$options = array_merge($defaults, $options);$namespaces = $xml->getDocNamespaces();$namespaces[''] = null; //add base (empty) namespace //get attributes from all namespaces$attributesArray = array();foreach ($namespaces as $prefix => $namespace) {foreach ($xml->attributes($namespace) as $attributeName => $attribute) {//replace characters in attribute nameif ($options['keySearch']) $attributeName =str_replace($options['keySearch'], $options['keyReplace'], $attributeName);$attributeKey = $options['attributePrefix']. ($prefix ? $prefix . $options['namespaceSeparator'] : ''). $attributeName;$attributesArray[$attributeKey] = (string)$attribute;}} //get child nodes from all namespaces$tagsArray = array();foreach ($namespaces as $prefix => $namespace) {foreach ($xml->children($namespace) as $childXml) {//recurse into child nodes$childArray = xmlToArray($childXml, $options);list($childTagName, $childProperties) = each($childArray); //replace characters in tag nameif ($options['keySearch']) $childTagName =str_replace($options['keySearch'], $options['keyReplace'], $childTagName);//add namespace prefix, if anyif ($prefix) $childTagName = $prefix . $options['namespaceSeparator'] . $childTagName; if (!isset($tagsArray[$childTagName])) {//only entry with this key//test if tags of this type should always be arrays, no matter the element count$tagsArray[$childTagName] =in_array($childTagName, $options['alwaysArray']) || !$options['autoArray']? array($childProperties) : $childProperties;} elseif (is_array($tagsArray[$childTagName]) && array_keys($tagsArray[$childTagName])=== range(0, count($tagsArray[$childTagName]) - 1)) {//key already exists and is integer indexed array$tagsArray[$childTagName][] = $childProperties;} else {//key exists so convert to integer indexed array with previous value in position 0$tagsArray[$childTagName] = array($tagsArray[$childTagName], $childProperties);}}} //get text content of node$textContentArray = array();$plainText = trim((string)$xml);if ($plainText !== '') $textContentArray[$options['textContent']] = $plainText; //stick it all together$propertiesArray = !$options['autoText'] || $attributesArray || $tagsArray || ($plainText === '')? array_merge($attributesArray, $tagsArray, $textContentArray) : $plainText; //return node as arrayreturn array($xml->getName() => $propertiesArray);}

$xmlNode = simplexml_load_file('example.xml');$arrayData = xmlToArray($xmlNode);echo json_encode($arrayData);