Read lists/array from a file

Hi

I need (/would like) to have some kind of a communication between a PHP Server and an ASOC app.
It all comes down to a database which the PHP manages.
The ASOC should be able to read an array/list from a file.

Ideally it should be a simple Syntax of the file.
Plist’s would be okay, but are quite hard to generate with a PHP-Script (since neighter plist nor plutil is installed on the server).

A rather generic XML-Syntax would be better (since there are many PHP-Classes to parse/create).

Is there a good way for an ASOC to parse an XML File?

NSXMLDocument

And NSXMLParser.