Today I need to convert XML file into associative array to store in variable. So I have done a lot of googling and I have found several methods/views and library to convert XML object into Array but in stack overflow I have found below simple script to convert xml into array.
In Below tutorial I will tell you how its converted step by step.

I have Facebook.xml config xml file:

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<h6>Step 1: XML File</h6>
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<moleculedb>
    <molecule name='Benzine'>
        <symbol>ben</symbol>
        <code>A</code>
    </molecule>
    <molecule name='Water'>
        <symbol>h2o</symbol>
        <code>K</code>
    </molecule>
	<molecule name='Parvez'>
        <symbol>h2o</symbol>
        <code>K</code>
    </molecule>
</moleculedb>

Step 2: Convert File Into String

Now I will file_get_contents PHP method to Reads entire file into a string.

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$xmlfile = file_get_contents($path);

Result

Step 3: Convert String Of XML Into An Object

Right now I have xml file as an string so I need to convert this xml string into Objects,So I will use simplexml_load_string() method to convert string of XML into an object.

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$ob= simplexml_load_string($xmlfile);

Result

Step 4: Encode XML Object Into Json

Now I will encode XML object into json.Below code is converting xml object into json string.

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$json  = json_encode($ob);

Result

Step 5:Decode Json Object

Fnally we will decode json decode to get array from json string.

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$configData = json_decode($json, true);

Result

Full Code

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$xmlfile = file_get_contents($path);
		$ob= simplexml_load_string($xmlfile);
		$json  = json_encode($ob);
		$configData = json_decode($json, true);