What best practices should be followed when working with XML data in PHP to ensure accurate comparisons?

When working with XML data in PHP, it is important to normalize the data before comparing it to ensure accurate results. This can be achieved by stripping whitespace and formatting the XML data consistently. By normalizing the data, you can avoid false negatives in your comparisons. 

// Normalize XML data before comparison
function normalizeXML($xml) {
    $xml = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $xml); // Remove whitespace
    $xml = preg_replace('/<!--(.|\s)*?-->/', '', $xml); // Remove comments
    $xml = trim($xml); // Trim excess whitespace
    return $xml;
}

$xml1 = normalizeXML($xml1);
$xml2 = normalizeXML($xml2);

// Now you can compare the normalized XML data accurately
if ($xml1 === $xml2) {
    echo "XML data matches.";
} else {
    echo "XML data does not match.";
}

Keywords

XML PHP data comparison accuracy best practices

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