Convert HTML DOM to JSON

html_to_obj.php

<?php

// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23062537/how-to-convert-html-to-json-using-php
function html_to_obj( $html ) {
    $dom = new DOMDocument();
    $dom->loadHTML( $html );
    return element_to_obj( $dom->documentElement );
}

function element_to_obj( $element ) {
	if ( isset( $element->tagName ) ) {
		$obj = array( 'tag' => $element->tagName );
	}
	if ( isset( $element->attributes ) ) {
		foreach ( $element->attributes as $attribute ) {
			$obj[ $attribute->name ] = $attribute->value;
		}
	}
	if ( isset( $element->childNodes ) ) {
		foreach ( $element->childNodes as $subElement ) {
			if ( $subElement->nodeType == XML_TEXT_NODE ) {
				$obj['html'] = $subElement->wholeText;
			} elseif ( $subElement->nodeType == XML_CDATA_SECTION_NODE ) {
				$obj['html'] = $subElement->data;
        	} else {
				$obj['children'][] = element_to_obj( $subElement );
			}
		}
	}
    return ( isset( $obj ) ) ? $obj : null;
}

is there a function / foreach loop to export the original html back again? cheers!