simplexml_load_string Interprets a string of XML into an object Description objectsimplexml_load_string stringdata stringclass_name intoptions This function will take the well-formed xml string data and return an object of class SimpleXMLElement with properties containing the data held within the xml document. If any errors occur, it returns &false;. You may use the optional class_name parameter so that simplexml_load_string will return an object of the specified class. That class should extend the SimpleXMLElement class. Since PHP 5.1.0 and Libxml 2.6.0, you may also use the options parameter to specify additional Libxml parameters. Interpret an XML string Forty What? Joe Jane I know that's the answer -- but what's the question? XML; $xml = simplexml_load_string($string); var_dump($xml); ?> ]]> This script will display: Forty What? [from] => Joe [to] => Jane [body] => I know that's the answer -- but what's the question? ) ]]> At this point, you can go about using $xml->body and such. See also: simplexml_load_file.