#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use XML::Twig; XML::Twig->new( twig_handlers => { 'level3/name' => sub { if( $_->text !~ m{^include}) { $_->parent->ignore; } }, level3 => sub { print "element processed:\n", $_->sprint, "\n"; } }, ) ->parse( \*DATA); __END__ include included rule 1 included rule 2 exclude excluded rule excluded rule