Writing data to XML via a while loop failing

[DJ_Polymorph]

Hi guys, I'm using my usual ass backwards coding again to write data into an XML file. I'm attempting to use

<?
$filename = "dirTree.xml";
$handle = fopen($filename, 'w');
//
$xmlDeclaration =  ("<?xml>\n");
$firstNode = ("	<dir>\n");
fputs($handle, $xmlDeclaration);
fputs($handle, $firstNode);
searchfolder ("./"); 
//
function searchfolder ($folder) { 
$childNodes = ("");
//go through all the contents of the folder 
$dir = opendir ($folder);
while (($file = readdir ($dir)) !== FALSE) { 
  if ($file != "." && $file != "..") { 
    $childNodes =  ("		<file>$file</file>\n");
    fputs($handle, $childNodes);
  } 
 }
}
//
$closeDoc = ("	</dir>");
fputs($handle, $closeDoc);
fclose($handle);
?>

but the while loop in the middle is failing and not writing the data. Basically the $childNodes variable consists of all the files in a directory, but I can't seem to be able to fit them between the surrounding XML tags I'm writing at the top and end of the code. Any ideas? I've tried pushing each $file var into an array and the looping that, but I keep getting erros. It's been one of those days you see...

Cheers

[DJ_Polymorph]

No worries, re-wrote it:

<?
$filename = "dirTree.xml";
$handle = fopen($filename, 'w');
$xmlDeclaration =  ("<?xml>\n");
$firstNode = ("    <dir>\n");
fputs($handle, $xmlDeclaration);
fputs($handle, $firstNode);
$OFFSET = 2;
$dirToList = "./";
$dirListArray = array();
$fileHandle = opendir("$dirToList");
while ($entry = readdir($fileHandle)) {
        array_push( $dirListArray, $entry);
}
$string = "";
$length = count($dirListArray);
for ($i = $OFFSET; $i < $length; $i++) {
    $string = ("        <File>$dirListArray[$i]</File>\n");
    fputs($handle, $string);
}
$xmlClose = ("    </dir>");
fputs($handle, $xmlClose);
fclose($handle);
?>

DJ