"At sign" @ in SimpleXML object?

Question

This is the output of print_r() run on a typical SimpleXMLElement object:

SimpleXMLElement Object
(
    [@attributes] => Array
        (

        )
)

What does the @ sign mean?

Answer 1

This is a SimpleXMLElement object. The '@attributes' row is an internal representation of the attributes from the XML element. Use SimpleXML's functions to get data from this object rather than interacting with it directly.

Answer 2

All those answers about error control are incorrect. The @ doesn't mean anything. That's how the property is called internally, but do not rely on this. Do not rely on print_r() or var_dump() when dealing with SimpleXML. SimpleXML does a lot of "magical" things that are not correctly represented by print_r() and var_dump().

If you need to know what's "inside" a XML fragment, just use ->asXML() on it.