Why does count(DOMNode->childNodes) return an incorrect number of children? (PHP and XML) [closed]

Answer 1

I'm guessing that your childNodes is including text nodes along with the XML tag nodes due to the white space in between tags. This can result in a count of childNodes twice what you expect it to be. You should check the nodeType to make sure it isn't a text node before attempting to get its attributes.

Possibly in here:

  for($x = 0; $x < count($node->childNodes); $x++)
  {
    // Verify that you're not working on a text node (type 3 TEXT_NODE)
    if($node->nodeType != 3 && $node->childNodes->item($x)->getAttribute("name") == $filename)
    {
      $target = $node->childNodes->item($x);
      echo "Target found.<br/>";
    }
    else
    {
      echo "Searching for target...<br/>";
    }
  }

Answer 2

From the PHP manual for count():

Returns the number of elements in var. If var is not an array or an object with implemented Countable interface, 1 will be returned.

DOMNode::$childNodes is a DOMNodeList object. It is not Countable. It will always return one (even if empty). Use its length property instead:

$count = $element->childNodes->length;

Update: DOMNodeList has been made Countable from PHP 7.2 onwards.