PHP SimpleXML get innerXML

Question

I need to get the HTML contents of answer in this bit of XML:

<qa>
 <question>Who are you?</question>
 <answer>Who who, <strong>who who</strong>, <em>me</em></answer>
</qa>

So I want to get the string "Who who, <strong>who who</strong>, <em>me</em>".

If I have the answer as a SimpleXMLElement, I can call asXML() to get "<answer>Who who, <strong>who who</strong>, <em>me</em></answer>", but how to get the inner XML of an element without the element itself wrapped around it?

I'd prefer ways that don't involve string functions, but if that's the only way, so be it.

Answer 1

function SimpleXMLElement_innerXML($xml)
  {
    $innerXML= '';
    foreach (dom_import_simplexml($xml)->childNodes as $child)
    {
        $innerXML .= $child->ownerDocument->saveXML( $child );
    }
    return $innerXML;
  };