How to convert simple_html_dom object back to string?

Question

I have used PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser to first convert an HTML string to DOM object by str_get_html() method of simple_html_dom.php

$summary = str_get_html($html_string);

1. Then I extracted an <img> object from the $summary by

   foreach ($summary->find('img') as $img) {
       $image = $img;
       break;
   }
   

   Now I needed to convert $image DOM object back to a string. I used the Object Oriented way mentioned here:

   $image_string = $image->save();
   

   I got the error (from the Moodle debugger):

   Fatal error: Call to undefined method simple_html_dom_node::save() ...

2. So I thought since I am working with Moodle, it may have something to do with Moodle, so I simply did the simple (non-object oriented?) way from the same manual:

   $image_string = $image;
   

   Then just to check/confirm that it has been converted to a string, I did:

   echo '$image TYPE: '.gettype($image);
   echo '<br><br>';
   echo '$image_string TYPE: '.gettype($image_string);
   

   But this prints:

   $image TYPE: object
   
   $image_string TYPE: object
   

So the question is Why??? Am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

You just cast it to a string in the normal way:

$image_string = (string)$image

Answer 2

Use outertext

$image_string = $image->outertext();

I looked in the code. function save return

$ret = $this->root->innertext();

But this is method of class simple_html_dom. After searching you receive object simple_html_dom_node. It hasn't such method and does not inherit. But has text, innertext and outertext.