to_a

Returns an Array of Element children. An <a href="/ruby/REXML/XPath">XPath</a> may be supplied to filter the children. Only <a href="/ruby/REXML/Element">Element</a> children are returned, even if the supplied XPath matches non-Element children.

 doc = Document.new '<a>sean<b/>elliott<c/></a>'
 doc.root.elements.to_a                  #-> [ <b/>, <c/> ]
 doc.root.elements.to_a("child::node()") #-> [ <b/>, <c/> ]
 XPath.match(doc.root, "child::node()")  #-> [ sean, <b/>, elliott, <c/> ]