How to find nil elements through xml xpath via php

Question

I have some elements that are nil. The returned elements are in a timestamp and I want to turn all the nil elements to a current date using getdate(). I'm sorry if im not using the right terminology or asking the right questions, feel free to edit if you understand.

Here is XML:

<tickets type="array" count="2">
  <ticket>
    <solved-at type="datetime">2012-02-20T17:58:34-05:00</solved-at>
  </ticket>
  <ticket>
    <solved-at type="datetime" nil="true"/>
  </ticket>
</tickets>

The php:

    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($result);
    $solved_at = $xml->xpath('ticket/solved-at');
    ... array
    echo "Ticket time solved at:" . $solved_at[$i]. "<br/>";

The returned:

Ticket time solved at:2012-02-20T17:58:34-5:00<br/>
Ticket time solved at:

I'd like to return the current datetime in UNIX for the null amounts in the xml, any ideas? I have tried the below but to no avail, I get same results as above:

if (is_null($solved_at[$i])) {
        $solved_at = getdate(); }

Answer 1

Try this.

$xml = simplexml_load_file("solved.xml");
$solved_at = $xml->xpath('ticket/solved-at');

foreach($solved_at as $solved) {
    if ($solved['nil']) { 
      $r = date('Y-m-d h:i:s a', time()); //getdate(); 
    }
    echo "Ticket time solved at:" . $r. "<br/>";
}