Simple XML Parsing with PHP 4

Here's a very simple way to parse a small XML file with PHP 4 using the DOMXML module. This approach only makes sense since the file I'm working with is very small.

$qsOption = "";

// Make sure the file exists.
if ( !$dom = domxml_open_file("C:\path\to\file\file.xml") ) {
  //echo "Error while parsing the document\n";
  //exit;
  // We'll exit quietly instead.
}
else
{
  $root = $dom->document_element();
  $nodes = $dom->get_elements_by_tagname("topic");
  $element = new DomElement();
  foreach($nodes as $node)
  {
    $element = $node;   
    $qsOption = $qsOption . "<option value=\"" .
    $element->get_attribute("tid") . "\">" .
    $element->get_content() . "</option>";
  }
}