#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $xml = do{ local $/; <DATA> };

print Dumper XMLin($xml);

__DATA__
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
    <test id="1">
        <first id="white">Mike</first>
    </test>
    <test id="1">
        <last id="black">Gifford</last>
    </test>
</root>