use strict;
use XML::XPath;
use XML::XPath::XMLParser;

my $xp = XML::XPath->new( xml => 'query.xml' );

print 'There are ', $xp->find('queries/query')->size, " 'query' nodes.
+\n";
foreach my $element (qw/topN layer filter name datatype/) {
    print "$element: ",
        (
        join ', ',
        map { XML::XPath::XMLParser::as_string($_) =~ />([^<]*)</ }
            $xp->find("queries/query/$element")->get_nodelist
        ),
        "\n";
} ## end foreach my $element (qw/topN layer filter name datatype/)

query.xml
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<queries>
    <query>
        <name>topHosts 20</name>
        <layer>LINK 20</layer>
        <topN>20</topN>
        <datatype>topHosts 20</datatype>
        <filter></filter>
    </query>
    <query>
        <name>topHosts 120</name>
        <layer>LINK 120</layer>
        <topN>120</topN>
        <datatype>topHosts 120</datatype>
        <filter></filter>
    </query>
</queries>