Walking thru XML

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Is there a way to walk through an XML file? I want to parse an XML file line-by-line, taking action depending on the tag found. I'm making a simple backup script that will back up filesystems as well as {My | Postgre}SQL databases. The config file would look like this:

<config>
    <logprefix>/var/log/sbackup</logprefix>
    <storage>/home/backups</storage>
    <item name = "SomeDatabase" type="MySQLDB">
        <dbName>SomeDatabase</dbName>
        <dbUser>SomeUser</dbuser>
        <dbPass>password</dbPass>
    </item>
    <item name = "SomeFilesFiles" type="Filesystem">
        <path>/home/globalherald</path>
    </item>
</config>
[download]

I tried using XML::Simple, dumping the contents into a hash structure, and walking through that, but I've done something wrong. Is what I'm trying to do possible? Here's the script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# sbackup.pl: Backing up the server.  Looks for a file
# called sbackup.xml in /etc which specifies, which databases
# and which directories to back up.
#
# TODO:
#    Add tar/database dump logs to logs
#    Add postgresql dumper
#    Add tar/database dump options to XML


use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;
use IO::File;
use vars qw($XMLConfig $logprefix $fh);

sub LogMsg
{

    my $consecho = 1;
    my $deadly = shift;
    my $message = shift;
    my $timestamp = localtime(time);
    
    open LogFile, ">>$logprefix/sbackup.log" || die "Can't open logfil
+e!";

    print LogFile "$timestamp: $message\n";
    if ($consecho == 1)
    {
        print "$timestamp: $message\n";
    }
    
    return;
        
}

sub ParseConfig
{
    $fh = new IO::File('/etc/sbackup.xml') or LogMsg(1, "Can't open sb
+ackup.xml!");
    $XMLConfig = XMLin($fh);
    return;
}

sub BackupMysqlDatabase
{
    my $item = shift;
    my $dbname = shift;
    my $dbuser = shift;
    my $dbpass = shift;
    
    my $command = "mysqldump --quick --add-locks --add-drop-table -a -
+e -F -K -u $dbuser -p $dbpass $dbname";
    
    #my $result = system($command);
    print $command;
    my $result = 0;
    if ($result == 0)
    {
        LogMsg(0, "Backup of $item, database $dbname successful!");
    }
    else
    {
        LogMsg(0, "Backup of $item, database $item failed!");
    }
    
    return;
}

sub BackupFS
{
    my $item = shift;
    my $frompath = shift;
    my $storage = shift;
    
    my $command = "tar cf $storage/$item.tar $frompath";
    #my $result = system($command);
    
    print $command;
    my $result = 0;
    
    if ($result == 0)
    {
        LogMsg(0, "Backup of $item, pathname $frompath successful!");
    }
    else
    {
        LogMsg(0, "Backup of $item, pathname $frompath failed!");
    }
    
    return;
    
}

my $localstorage;
my %currentFS = ("item", "", "source", "") ;
my %currentDB = ("item", "", "dbname", "", "dbuser", "",  "dbpass", ""
+);
my $currentitem;

ParseConfig();

foreach my $element ($XMLConfig)
{
    print "The element is $element!\n";
    my %somehash = {$element};
    my @hashkeys = keys %somehash;
    print "Keys are: @hashkeys\n";
    if ($element eq "Logprefix")
    {
        $logprefix = $XMLConfig->logprefix;
    }
    if ($element eq "Storage")
    {
        $localstorage = $XMLConfig->storage;
    }
    if ($element eq "Item")
    {
        if ($element->{type} eq "MySQLDB")
        {
            foreach my $element2 ($element)
            {
                if ($element2 eq "DbName")
                {
                    $currentDB{item} = $element->{item};
                    $currentDB{dbname} = $element2->{DbName};
                }
                if ($element2 eq "DbUser")
                {
                    $currentDB{dbuser} = $element2->{DbUser};
                }
                if ($element2 eq "DbPass")
                {
                    $currentDB{dbpass} = $element2->{DbPass};
                }
            }
            
            BackupMySQLDatabase($currentDB{item}, $currentDB{dbname}, 
+$currentDB{dbuser}, $currentDB{dbpass});
        }
        if ($element->{type} eq "Filesystem")
        {
            foreach my $element2 ($element)
            {
                if ($element2 eq "Path")
                {
                    $currentFS{item} = $element->{Item};
                    $currentFS{path} = $element2->{Path};
                }
            }
            BackupFS($currentFS{item}, $currentFS{path}, $localstorage
+);
        }
    }
}

close ($fh);
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Thanks everybody!

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