Note that loadXML crops off beginning and trailing whitespace and linebreaks.
When using loadXML and appendChild to add a chunk of XML to an existing document, you may want to force a linebreak between the end of the XML chunk and the next line (usually a close tag) in the output file:
$childDocument = new DOMDocument;
$childDocument>preserveWhiteSpace = true;
$childDocument->loadXML(..XML-Chunk..);
$mNewNode = $mainDOcument->importNode($childDocument->documentElement, true);
$ParentNode->appendChild($mNewNode);
$ParentNode->appendChild($mainDocument->createTextNode("\\n ");
Although it is said that DOM should not be used to make 'pretty' XML output, it is something I struggled with to get something that was readable for testing. Another solution is to use the createDocumentFragment()->appendXML(..XML-Chunk..) instead, which seems not to trim off linebreaks like DOMDocument->loadXML() does.