xml parse to variable

[Dolby]

I have the following XML data in a variable coming from a secure curl form

$xml_data =

<User>
<flags>A</flags>
<id>12345</id>
<name>Dolby</name>
<premium>Yes</premium>
</User>

I need to parse this xml so that each value is in a variable.

$xml['user']['flags'];  //this has the A value in it
$xml['user']['id'];  //this has the 12345 value in it
etc...

I am using php4 on the server and can not yet upgrade to php5 to use simplexml.

I've been searching for examples but none of the ones I find for xml_parse() show anything close to what I need. Does any one have any suggestions or seen any examples that fit what I need?

[Mandes]

Have you seen http://www.magicparser.com/

[Dolby]

I've ran across that but dont want to purchase it if its not going to work for me.

I've been mainly playing and trying to figure how to use something like this...

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
    global $name;
}

function endElement($parser, $name) {
    global $insideitem, $tag, $title, $description, $link;
    
}

function characterData($parser, $data) {
    global $insideitem, $name, $flags, $id, $name;

    switch ($name) {
        case "FLAGS":
        $flags .= $data;
        break;
        case "ID":
        $id .= $data;
        break;
        case "NAME":
        $username .= $data;
        break;
        case "PREMIUM":
        $premium .= $data;
        break;
    }
    
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");

while ($data = $xml_data)
    xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, $xml_data)
        or die();
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);



echo $username;

[Dolby]

I decided to use preg_match_all instead.