#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Parser;
use Data::Dumper;

my $text = '<container><thing>hi</thing><thing>there</thing></container>';
my $parser = new XML::Parser(Style => 'Objects', Pkg => 'MyPkg');
my $object = $parser->parse($text)->[0];
print Dumper($object);

{ package MyPkg::container;

# use base 'XML::Element'; # Or something like that?

# Constructor method, nothing exciting happening here so
# it's redundant but just to show I could have one...
  sub start_tag {
    my ($class, $container) = shift;
# The parser should use start_tag's return value when
# returning this parsed object to anything containing it (or
# the caller if this is the root object).
    bless {}, $class
  }

  sub end_tag { # Should get contained objects as values
# Check accumulated contents and store values in my hash -
# here I'm expecting only a list of <thing>s...
    my ($self, @contents) = @_;
    die "Non-thing (" . ref $_ . ") in container!" for
        grep ! $_->isa('MyPkg::thing'), @contents;
    $self->{THINGS} = \@contents;
  }

  sub myMethod { # Execute stuff using parsed objects
  }

}

{ package MyPkg::thing;

# use base 'XML::Element'; # Or something like that?

  sub end_tag { # Should get contained objects as values
# Check accumulated contents and store values in my hash -
# here I'm expecting only plain text in the form of scalars.
    my ($self, @contents) = @_;
    die "Non-scalar (" . ref $_ . ") in thing!" for
        grep ref $_, @contents;
    $self->{DATA} = join('', @contents);
  }

}