XML empty field becomes []

[Glasya]

Hi,

I don't know wether i'm doing something wrong here or forgetting something but heres the weird thing.
When parsing an .xml file, if a field is empty it gets translated to an empty array, my guess is this is due to a multi-array functionality.

For instance this is my XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request>
 <company></company>
 <first_name>Joe</first_name>
 <insertion></insertion>
 <last_name>Dirt</last_name>
 <gender>0</gender>  <!-- 0=male/ 1=female-->
 <street>Somestreet</street>
 <street_number>13</street_number>
 <number_adjective></number_adjective>
 <zipcode>0000AA</zipcode>
 <city>Denver</city>
 <email1>j.dirt@somedomain.com</email1>
 <email2></email2>
 <contact_preference>3</contact_preference>  <!-- 1=morning / 2=midday / 3=evening -->
 <home_phone>0123456789</home_phone>
 <mobile>0612345678</mobile>
 <remarks>Some text here</remarks>
 <date>2015-07-03</date>  <!-- MySQL date format -->
 <source_id>1</source_id> <!-- Internal unique number from supplier -->
 <source_api>1234567890</source_api> <!-- API key -->
</request>

I am loading it with: $xml = Parser::xml(File::get($filename));
when doing a dd($xml); it gives me something like:

company = []
first_name = Joe
insertion = []
last_name = Dirt
gender = 0
street = Somestreet
street_number = 13
etc.

When inserting it in the database i get values named Array.

Is there any easy way for me to force empty fields to empty instead of array types?

[nathanmac]

@Glasya - If you use release 3.6 it is fixed and now returns a null value not an empty array.

Thanks for point out the issue.

[sivpro]

Use version 2* (with laravel 4). Array is present if empty field.