use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;

my $data = do {local $/;<DATA>};
my $xml  = XMLin($data);

print $xml->{label}, "\n";
print $xml->{id},    "\n";

__DATA__
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<gene id = "3" label = "gene_of_interest" />

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;

my $data = do {local $/;<DATA>};
my $xml  = XMLin($data);

print $xml->{'gene' => {'id', 'label'}}, "\n";

__DATA__
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gene id = "3" label = "gene_of_interest" />