_inner_html replacement to work with < PHP 5.3.6

gistfile1.txt

/**
   * innerHTML style function
   *
   * @param DOMNode node
   * @returns string the inner html string
   */
  protected function _inner_html( $node )
  {
    
    $doc = new DOMDocument('1.0','utf-8');
    $doc->formatOutput = true;
    $copy = $doc->importNode( $node, true );
    $doc->appendChild( $copy );
    
    $html = $doc->saveHTML();
    $start = stripos($html, '>')+1;
    return substr( $html, $start, strrpos($html, '<')-$start-1);
  }