In php5-swig, replace the output_by_fd() hack with a function that allows conversion...

[xml-template] / php5-swig / simple.php

<?php
include("xml-template.php");

$doc = XML_Template_process_file('../xml/simple.xml', array( 
        'title' => 'A very basic example',
        '#hello' => 'Hello world!'
), true);
print XML_Template_convert_doc_to_string($doc);

?>