# Can't get simplexml's xpath to return anything from flickr's photo set RSS feed

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-get-simplexmls-xpath-to-return-anything-from-flickrs-photo-set-rss-feed/329547>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [September 12, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-get-simplexmls-xpath-to-return-anything-from-flickrs-photo-set-rss-feed/329547 "2012-09-12T16:52:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dragonfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8e8cbc/32.png) [@dragonfly](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/dragonfly)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-get-simplexmls-xpath-to-return-anything-from-flickrs-photo-set-rss-feed/329547/1 "2012-09-12T16:52:40Z")

</div>

Consider the following:

```auto
<?php
$feed_url = "http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photoset.gne?set=72157603482891441&nsid=14571714@N08&lang=en-us";
$flickr_xml = simplexml_load_file($feed_url);

$something = $flickr_xml->xpath('/feed');

print_r($something);
?>

```

If I look at the XML in the feed above, the first element its “feed”. So, that xpath expression should return something, but it doesn’t.

In fact, xpath(’/’) doesn’t return anything either. Anyone know why this is?