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

my $xml = <<'EOD' ;
<database name="somedb">
  <table name="table1">
    <column name="column11"  type="CHAR" />
    <column name="column12"  type="CHAR" />
  </table>
  <table name="table2">
    <column name="column21" type="CHAR" />
    <column name="column22" type="CHAR" />
  </table>
</database>
EOD

my $data = XMLin( $xml, forcearray => 1 ) ;
 
foreach my $key ( keys %{$data->{'table'}} )
{
    print "$key \n";  
  
 #foreach my $column ( @{$data->{'table'}{$key}{'column'}{name}} )
 # {
 #      print "key = $key; column = $column\n" ;
 # }
}