What is the issue with using unset() to delete unwanted values from an XML file in PHP?

The issue with using unset() to delete unwanted values from an XML file in PHP is that it only removes the element from the array representation of the XML data, not from the actual XML file. To properly delete unwanted values from an XML file, you should use the DOMDocument class in PHP to load the XML file, locate the unwanted elements, and remove them using the removeChild() method. 

<?php
// Load the XML file
$xml = new DOMDocument();
$xml->load('example.xml');

// Find the unwanted elements by tag name
$unwantedElements = $xml->getElementsByTagName('unwanted_element');

// Loop through the unwanted elements and remove them
foreach ($unwantedElements as $element) {
    $element->parentNode->removeChild($element);
}

// Save the updated XML back to the file
$xml->save('example.xml');
?>

Keywords

unset XML file PHP delete values

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