Please discard my previous note; I pressed 'Add Note' too quickly
About (non-)self-closing tags:
A) <tag></tag>
$xmlRdr->isEmptyElement => false
$xmlRdr->hasValue => false
$xmlRdr->value => ''
$xmlRdr->hasAttributes => false
B) <tag />
$xmlRdr->isEmptyElement => true
$xmlRdr->hasValue => false
$xmlRdr->value => ''
$xmlRdr->hasAttributes => false
C) <tag attribute="value"></tag>
$xmlRdr->isEmptyElement => false
$xmlRdr->hasValue => false
$xmlRdr->value => ''
$xmlRdr->hasAttributes => true
D) <tag attribute="value" />
$xmlRdr->isEmptyElement => true
$xmlRdr->hasValue => false
$xmlRdr->value => ''
$xmlRdr->hasAttributes => true
... and always use the '===' operator when testing properties