converting SOAP XML response to a PHP object or array

The hint of bksi is not that wrong, however technically as this is XML you only need to access the namespaced elements properly. This works more easy by using an XPath expression and registering the namspace-uri to your own prefix:

$soap = simplexml_load_string($soapXMLResult);
$soap->registerXPathNamespace('ns1', 'http://ivectorbookingxml/');
$test = (string) $soap->xpath('//ns1:SearchResponse/ns1:SearchResult/ns1:SearchURL[1]')[0];
var_dump($test);

Output:

string(100) "http://www.lowcostholidays.fr/dl.aspx?p=0,8,5,0&date=10/05/2013&duration=15&room1=2,1,0_5&regionid=9"

If you don't want to use XPath, you need to specify the namespace while you traverse, only the children in the namespace of the element itself are available directly if the element itself is not prefixed. As the root element is prefixed you first need to traverse up to the response:

$soap     = simplexml_load_string($soapXMLResult);
$response = $soap->children('http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/')
                     ->Body->children()
                         ->SearchResponse
;

Then you can make use of the $response variable as you know it:

$test = (string) $response->SearchResult->SearchURL;

because that element is not prefixed. As a more complex result is returned this is probably the best because you can easily access all the response values.

Your question is similar to:

• Parse CDATA from a SOAP Response with PHP

Maybe the code/descriptions there are helpful, too.

Another solution, the only solution that worked for me :

$xml = $soap_xml_result;
$xml = preg_replace("/(<\/?)(\w+):([^>]*>)/", '$1$2$3', $xml);
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$json = json_encode($xml);
$responseArray = json_decode($json, true); // true to have an array, false for an object
print_r($responseArray);

Enjoy :)