In this simple case type casting will also work:
$my_array = (array)$answer
This should work:
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlstring);$json = json_encode($xml);$array = json_decode($json,TRUE);
The $answer can already work as an array. You can do this if you want put it in a real array,
$answer
$array = array();foreach($answer as $k => $v) { $array[$k] = $v;}