What are the potential pitfalls of using str_replace to replace placeholders in XML elements in PHP?

Using str_replace to replace placeholders in XML elements in PHP can lead to unintended replacements within the XML structure, potentially causing parsing errors or corrupting the XML data. To safely replace placeholders in XML elements, it is recommended to use PHP's DOMDocument class to parse and manipulate the XML structure.

$xmlString = '<root><name>{NAME}</name><age>{AGE}</age></root>';
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadXML($xmlString);

$nameNode = $dom->getElementsByTagName('name')->item(0);
$nameNode->nodeValue = 'John';

$ageNode = $dom->getElementsByTagName('age')->item(0);
$ageNode->nodeValue = '30';

$newXmlString = $dom->saveXML();
echo $newXmlString;