It seems the syntax parsing chokes on heredocs, code provided below
<?php $xmlstr = <<<XML <?xml version='1.0'?> <movies> <movie> <title>PHP: Behind the Parser</title> <characters> <character> <name>Ms. Coder</name> <actor>Onlivia Actora</actor> </character> <plot> So, this language. It's like, a programming language. Or is it a scripting language? All is revealed in this thrilling horror spoof of a documentary. </plot> <rating type="thumbs">7</rating> <rating type="stars">5</rating> </movie> </movies> XML;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlstr);
echo "<p>" . $xml->movie[0]->plot . "</p>";
?>
example taken and trimmed slightly from http://se.php.net/simplexml
Andreas