use constant RECS => 1000000;
{
    open my $fh, ">/tmp/bla.xml" or die;
    select $fh;
    print "<addresses>\n";
    for (1..RECS) {
	print <<EOF;
  <address>
     <name>John Smith</name>
     <city>London</city>
  </address>
EOF
    }
    print "</addresses>\n";
}

{
    require Storable;
    my @addresses;
    for (1..RECS) {
	push @addresses, { name => "John Smith", city => "London" };
    }
    Storable::nstore(\@addresses, "/tmp/bla.st");
}

##</code><code>##

$ ( set time = ( 0 "%U+%S %E %MK" ) ; time perl -MStorable -e 'retrieve "/tmp/bla.st"' )
1.980+0.384 0:02.41 193974K
$ ( set time = ( 0 "%U+%S %E %MK" ) ; time perl -MXML::LibXML -e 'XML::LibXML->new->parse_file("/tmp/bla.xml")->documentElement' )
6.037+1.876 0:08.15 643952K