In PHP 5 all of the XML related extensions are now based around the libxml2 library. PHP 5 also comes with the new simplexml extension, which allows the manipulation of XML documents using ZE2 OO constructs

Sample XML file
<books>
 <book>
  <title>The Grapes of Wrath</title>
  <author>John Steinbeck</author>
 </book>
 <book>
  <title>The Pearl</title>
  <author>John Steinbeck</author>
 </book>
</books>
Loading the XML using simplexml
<?php

    $books = simplexml_load_file('books.xml');
    foreach($books->book as $book) {
        echo "{$book->title} was written by {$book->author}\n";
    }
?>