hello! 1 foo wooyay hoopla http://www.flickr.com/photos/bees/2733/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bees/2734/ '; $xml = simplexml_load_string($str); foreach($xml->photo->attributes() as $k=>$v) { $ret[(string)$k] = (string)$v; } foreach($xml->photo->children() as $k=>$v) { foreach($v->attributes() as $kk=>$vv) { $ret[(string)$k][(string)$kk] = (string)$vv; } $id = -1; foreach($v->children() as $kk=>$vv) { $typed = false; if(isset($vv['id'])) $id = (string)$vv['id']; else if(isset($vv['type'])) { $id = (string)$vv['type']; $typed = true; } else $id++; foreach($vv->attributes() as $kkk=>$vvv) { $ret[(string)$k][$id][(string)$kkk] = (string)$vvv; } if($typed) $ret[(string)$k][$id] = (string)$vv; else $ret[(string)$k][$id]['text'] = (string)$vv; } if(!count($ret[(string)$k])) { $ret[(string)$k] = (string)$v; } } print_r($ret); ?>