PHP XML why I can't read the first attribute with SimpleXML?

Question

The XML file I want to read looks like this:

<issues aaa="444" exportTime="Tue Jul 28 23:54:39 CEST 2015">
  <issue>
   <name>Testing</name>

I use this code:

$simple = file_get_contents('/url/test3.xml');
$test = new SimpleXMLElement($simple);

I can read the issue name children:

echo $test->issue[1]->name;

How can I read issues ExportTime value?

echo $test->issues[exportTime]

doesn't do anything.

Answer 1

Try

<?php

$str = <<<XML
<issues aaa="444" exportTime="Tue Jul 28 23:54:39 CEST 2015">
  <issue>
   <name>Testing</name>
  </issue>
</issues>
XML;

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($str);
var_dump($xml['exportTime']);

?>

OUTPUT

object(SimpleXMLElement)[2]
  public 0 => string 'Tue Jul 28 23:54:39 CEST 2015' (length=29)