Say you have a script called foo and a file of configuration options called foo.xml containing this:
</p>
<code>
  <config logdir="/var/log/foo/" debugfile="/tmp/foo.debug">
    <server name="sahara" osname="solaris" osversion="2.6">
      <address>10.0.0.101</address>
      <address>10.0.1.101</address>
    </server>
    <server name="gobi" osname="irix" osversion="6.5">
      <address>10.0.0.102</address>
    </server>
    <server name="kalahari" osname="linux" osversion="2.0.34">
      <address>10.0.0.103</address>
      <address>10.0.1.103</address>
    </server>
  </config>

##</code><code>##

  use XML::Simple;

  my $config = XMLin();

##</code><code>##

  use Data::Dumper;

  print Dumper($config);

##</code><code>##

  {
      'logdir'        => '/var/log/foo/',
      'debugfile'     => '/tmp/foo.debug',
      'server'        => {
          'sahara'        => {
              'osversion'     => '2.6',
              'osname'        => 'solaris',
              'address'       => [ '10.0.0.101', '10.0.1.101' ]
          },
          'gobi'          => {
              'osversion'Does that seem like what      => '6.5',
              'osname'        => 'irix',
              'address'       => '10.0.0.102'
          },
          'kalahari'      => {
              'osversion'     => '2.0.34',
              'osname'        => 'linux',
              'address'       => [ '10.0.0.103', '10.0.1.103' ]
          }
      }
  }

##</code><code>##

  print $config->{logdir};

##</code><code>##

  print $config->{server}->{kalahari}->{address}->[1];