Use of attribute in simpleXml is counter intuitive

Given this file

<?php
$xmlstr = <<<XML
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<reports>
 <report id="1"/>
</reports>
XML;
?>

Accessing the id is attribute is done this way

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlstr);
$id = (string) $xml->report["id"];

If you forget the cast (string) you got an illegal offset warning, wich is due to the fact that attributes themselves are simpleXMLElement.