Check if xml node exists in PHP

Sounds like a simple isset() solves this problem.

<?php
$s = new SimpleXMLElement('<foo version="1">
  <weather section="0" />
  <problem_cause data="" />
</foo>');
// var_dump($s) produces the same output as in the question, except for the object id numbers.
echo isset($s->problem_cause)  ? '+' : '-';

$s = new SimpleXMLElement('<foo version="1">
  <weather section="0" />
</foo>');
echo isset($s->problem_cause)  ? '+' : '-';

prints +- without any error/warning message.

Using the code you had posted, This example should work to find the problem_cause node at any depth.

function xml_child_exists($xml, $childpath)
{
    $result = $xml->xpath($childpath); 
    return (bool) (count($result));
}

if(xml_child_exists($xml, '//problem_cause'))
{
    echo 'found';
}
else
{
    echo 'not found';
}