sub _addNode {
    my ($parent, $child) = @_;
    if(ref($child) eq 'XML::LibXML::Element'){
	$parent->appendChild($child);
    }elsif(ref($child) eq ''){
	$parent->appendTextNode($child);
    }else{
	die "'_addNode child is type: ".ref($child).
	    " Do not know what to do with that";
    }
    return $parent;
}

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use XML::LibXML;

# The XML Document
my $DOC = XML::LibXML->createDocument( "1.0", "UTF-8" );

# Set the root
my $root = $DOC->createElement('owner');
$DOC->setDocumentElement($root);


sub createOwner {
    if(rand() < 0.5){
	return "John Smith";
    }else{
	my $ret =  XML::LibXML::Element->new('href');
	$ret->appendTextNode('http://johnsmith.com');
	return $ret;
    }
}

sub _addNode {
    my ($parent, $child) = @_;
    if(ref($child) eq 'XML::LibXML::Element'){
	$parent->appendChild($child);
    }elsif(ref($child) eq ''){
	$parent->appendTextNode($child);
    }else{
	die "'_addNode child is type: ".ref($child).
	    " Do not know what to do with that";
    }
    return $parent;
}
my $owner = &createOwner();
$root = &_addNode($root, $owner);
print $DOC."\n";