I need to find the node attributes(e.g permission in this case ) in the xml string. the sample string will look like this

XMl string
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<corp>
  <report permission="10">
   <abstract permission="4"/>
   <transfer permission="10"/>
   <summary permission="5"/>
   <billing permission="10"/>
   <annuity permission="0"/>
  </report>
</corp>

how can i write a php function , the argument to the function will be the xpath(e.g corp/billing/@permission) and the output will be the permission value(e.g 10). Is there is any inbuilt function in php?



If you're familiar with Xpath, have a look at the php.Xpath package on Sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpxpath/. The documentation is at http://www.carrubbers.org/scripts/php/xpath/doc/.  Not used it myself, but it looks like it might be the sort of thing you're looking for.  There's a quick start guide to using Xpath in PHP with this package at http://jm3.net/misc/php-xpath-quickstart/ - examples of the sort of thing you're looking for in just half a dozen lines of code.

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