- simplexml_load_string: documentation ( source)
<?php
$str=<<<XML
<scales>
<scale id="1" gender="*" age="*">
<d>5</d>
<d>9</d>
</scale>
<scale id="2" gender="m" age="*">
<d>3</d>
<d>0</d>
</scale>
<scale id="3" gender="*" age="19-39">
<d>12</d>
<d>19</d>
</scale>
</scales>
XML;
$xml=simplexml_load_string($str);
$result=$xml->xpath('//scale[@gender="*" or @gender="m"][@age="*" or @age="39-59"]');
foreach($result as $node)
{
echo $node->scale->d."\n";
}