XML to array using json_encode

gistfile1.php

<?php

// Note that this will not maintain XML attributes
function jsonXml2Array(SimpleXMLElement $xml)
{
    return json_decode(json_encode($xml), true);
}

function jsonXml2ArrayWithNamespacedAttributes($xml)
{
    // Gets rid of all namespace definitions and namespace references
    return json_decode(json_encode(new \SimpleXMLElement(
        preg_replace(array('/\sxmlns[^"]+"[^"]+"/', '/[a-zA-Z]+:([a-zA-Z]+[=>])/'), array('', '$1'), $xml)
    )), true);
}