#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper qw( Dumper );
use XML::Simple  qw( );

$XML::Simple::PREFERRED_PARSER = 'XML::Parser';

my $latin1_xml = <<"__EOI__";
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<root>\311ric</root>
__EOI__

my $utf8_xml = <<"__EOI__";
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>\303\211ric</root>
__EOI__

my $xs = XML::Simple->new();
for my $xml ($latin1_xml, $utf8_xml) {
    my $tree = $xs->XMLin($xml,
        ForceArray => 1,
        KeepRoot   => 1,
    );
    local $Data::Dumper::Useqq = 1;
    print Dumper $tree;
}