code igniter php - how to echo model data within the controller

I'm new at code igniter and I'm trying to figure out how to utiliz开发者_C百科e data returned from my database. I have a simple query in the model:

function feed_get_all_trees(){
        $query = $this->db->get('trees');
        foreach ($query->result() as $row){
            $data[] = $row;
        }
        return $data;
    }

Then in the controller, I am building an XML Feed with the help of an XML plugin library I found, so I want to echo the data out in the controller rather than in a view. Normally, if I was using a view, I'd do this:

$this->load->model('Model_form','', TRUE);
        $data['rows'] = $this->Model_form->feed_get_all_trees(); //gets the available groups for the dropdown
        $this->load->view('view_name',$data);
        }

But in order to construct my XML feed - I need to access data right here. If I try this:

foreach ($rows as $r){
            $treeName = $r->tree_name;
            $xml->startBranch('tree');
                $xml->addNode('treeName',$treeName);
            $xml->endBranch();

I get an error, because it doesn't know what $rows is. How do I refer to data['rows'] here so I can access the data?

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Not sure if I fully understand what you're trying to do as I've never used any XML plugin, but wouldn't you just do something like this to access the data?

$data['rows'] = $this->Model_form->feed_get_all_trees(); 
foreach($data['rows'] as $row) { ... }