Online PHP editor | output for bKuOd

<?php /** * PHP DomXPath not selecting empty text nodes * * @link http://stackoverflow.com/q/29241126/367456 */ $buffer = <<<XML <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Recipes> <RecipeSteps> <RecipeStep number="1">Dummy content</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="2">Dummy content</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="3">Dummy content</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="4">Dummy content</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="5">Dummy content</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="6"></RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="7">Variations</RecipeStep> <RecipeStep number="8">Some variation content..</RecipeStep> </RecipeSteps> </Recipes> XML; $doc = new DOMDocument(); $doc->loadXML($buffer); $xpath = new DOMXPath($doc); $path = "//RecipeSteps/RecipeStep[not(text())]"; $stepsQuery = $xpath->query($path); $numResults = $stepsQuery->length; var_dump($numResults); foreach($stepsQuery as $i => $node) { printf("#%d: %s\n", ++$i, $doc->saveXML($node)); }