(PHP 5)
DOMNode::lookupNamespaceURI — Gets the namespace URI of the node based on the prefix
Gets the namespace URI of the node based on the prefix.
The prefix of the namespace.
The namespace URI of the node.
You have to pass *null* to lookupNamespaceURI if you want to read the default namespace. Passing an empty string doesn't work - even though the documentation says that lookupNamespaceURI takes a string as argument (and null would just be converted to an empty string).
Simple way to get the URI of the default namespace:
<?php
$document = new DOMDocument();
$document->load($xml_file);
$uri = $document->documentElement->lookupnamespaceURI(NULL);
?>