PHP DOM - counting child nodes? -

html snippet #1

<div> </div> <div>     <h1>headline</h1> </div> 

html snippet #2

<div></div> <div><h1>headline</h1></div> 

php code

$doc = new domdocument(); $doc->loadhtml($x); $xpath = new domxpath($doc); $divs = $xpath->query("//div");  foreach ($divs $div) echo $div->childnodes->length,"<br />"; 

output $x = snippet #1
1
3

output $x = snippet #2
0
1

see working demo: http://codepad.viper-7.com/11bgge

my questions
1. how can be?
2. how count child nodes correctly dom?

edit:
silkfire said, empty space considered text node. set

$doc->preservewhitespace = false; 

but results still same: http://codepad.viper-7.com/bng5io

any ideas?

just count non-text nodes in loop:

$count = 0; foreach($div->childnodes $node)       if(!($node instanceof \domtext))           $count++;  print $count; 

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using xpath:

$nodesfromdiv1 = $xpath->query("//div[1]/*")->length; $nodesfromdiv2 = $xpath->query("//div[2]/*")->length; 

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to remove empty text nodes, when preservewhitespace=false not working (as suggested in chat):

$textnodes = $xpath->query('//text()');  foreach($textnodes $node)   if(trim($node->wholetext) === '')     $node->parentnode->removechild($node);