Dom2Array converts a DOMDocument object to a PHP array. Array2Dom just does the opposite

Dom2Array.php

<?php

/**
 * Recursive function to turn a DOMDocument element to an array
 * @param DOMDocument $root the document (might also be a DOMElement/DOMNode?)
 */
function Dom2Array($root) {
    $array = array();

    //list attributes
    if($root->hasAttributes()) {
        foreach($root->attributes as $attribute) {
            $array['_attributes'][$attribute->name] = $attribute->value;
        }
    }

    //handle classic node
    if($root->nodeType == XML_ELEMENT_NODE) {
        $array['_type'] = $root->nodeName;
        if($root->hasChildNodes()) {
            $children = $root->childNodes;
            for($i = 0; $i < $children->length; $i++) {
                $child = Dom2Array( $children->item($i) );

                //don't keep textnode with only spaces and newline
                if(!empty($child)) {
                    $array['_children'][] = $child;
                }
            }
        }

    //handle text node
    } elseif($root->nodeType == XML_TEXT_NODE || $root->nodeType == XML_CDATA_SECTION_NODE) {
        $value = $root->nodeValue;
        if(!empty($value)) {
            $array['_type'] = '_text';
            $array['_content'] = $value;
        }
    }

    return $array;
}

/**
 * Recursive function to turn an array to a DOMDocument
 * @param array       $array the array
 * @param DOMDocument $doc   only used by recursion
 */
function Array2Dom($array, $doc = null) {
    if($doc == null) {
        $doc = new DOMDocument();
        $doc->formatOutput = true;
        $currentNode = $doc;
    } else {
        if($array['_type'] == '_text')
            $currentNode = $doc->createTextNode($array['_content']);
        else
            $currentNode = $doc->createElement($array['_type']);
    }

    if($array['_type'] != '_text') {
        if(isset($array['_attributes'])) {
            foreach ($array['_attributes'] as $name => $value) {
                $currentNode->setAttribute($name, $value);
            }
        }

        if(isset($array['_children'])) {
            foreach($array['_children'] as $child) {
                $childNode = Array2Dom($child, $doc);
                $childNode = $currentNode->appendChild($childNode);
            }
        }
    }

    return $currentNode;
}

?>

index.php

<?php

require_once "xmlutils.php";

$root = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'utf-8');
$root->load('user.xml');
$array = Dom2Array($root);
var_dump($array);
$newRoot = Array2Dom($array);
var_dump($newRoot->saveXML());

?>

user.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<user id="1">
  <updated timestamp="1381840191"/>
  <login>login</login>
  <password>password</password>
</user>

Thank you for this. Made traversing the DOM of an XML file so much easier!