XML::Simple works with XML files. What you get back is an object of class NaElement. Consult your documentation on NaElement (possibly by typing perldoc NaElement at the command prompt) on how to use it. In any case, you don't need to "read in" the object or do anything special to use it as a Perl object, except that without reading the documentation, you won't be able to know what to do with the object.