$ perl -MXML::LibXML -E' my $foster_home = XML::LibXML::Document->new("1.0", "UTF-8"); my $node; { my $xml = ""; my $doc = XML::LibXML->new->parse_string($xml); ($node) = $doc->findnodes("//bar"); $node->setOwnerDocument($foster_home); } { my $doc = $node->ownerDocument; say "owner=", $doc; if ($doc) { say $_->nodeName for $doc->findnodes("//*"); } } ' owner=XML::LibXML::Document=SCALAR(0x832af38)