What are common pitfalls to avoid when working with XML files in PHP?

One common pitfall when working with XML files in PHP is not properly handling errors that may occur during parsing or manipulation of the XML data. To avoid this, it's important to use error handling techniques such as try-catch blocks to catch and handle any exceptions that may be thrown.

try {
    $xml = simplexml_load_file('data.xml');
    // do something with the XML data
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo 'Error loading XML file: ' . $e->getMessage();
}