PHP + SimpleXML: Creating XML File Using simplexml_load_string Error

Say you’re trying to create a xml file in PHP by using the SimpleXML library but getting this error:

Warning: simplexml_load_string() [function.simplexml-load-string]: Entity: line 1: parser error : Start tag expected, ‘<' not found in C:\xampp\htdocs\dev\test\sitemapmine.php on line 4

Here’s how that happened and how it can be solved.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

$xml = “<?xml version=’1.0′ encoding=’UTF-8′?>”;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml);

$xml = “<?xml version=’1.0′ encoding=’UTF-8′?><whatever></whatever>;”;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml);

The first block of code will give you the error which tells you that it’s looking for a starting < tag. Introduce a well-formed xml tag at the end of <?xml .... ?> (see code block 2) and the error will go away.