Okay, I'm stuck again. I can print the now_playing content just fine, but that's not really my intention. I would like to use the data further down the line, but can't seem to get it out of the XML-Rules parser section.

I tried to populate a string called $nowplaying with it but outside of the parser section, the string prints just empty. Obviously, the print is again just temporary so I can see that it works before I continue.

How do I get the string contents outside of the parser section? Here's what I have:

my $nowplaying = "";

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
    stripspaces => 7,
    rules => {
        info => sub {
            $nowplaying = $_[1]->{_content} 
            if $_[1]->{name} eq 'now_playing';
            return ;
        }
    }
);
$parser->parse($streaminfo);

print $nowplaying;
[download]

I'm sure it's again something real simple I'm missing here.

Just change the line

$nowplaying = $_[1]->{_content}
[download]

to

$nowplaying .= $_[1]->{_content}
[download]

You just missed the contatenation sign. :-)

Update: Another way could be to populate a data structure with this content, e.g. push @array,$_[1]->{_content} if ... where @array is declared outside the parser.

Update 2:After some thoughts: in fact your version works for me in the presented example too. However I reckon that you have more than one xml in your real script so that the content is lost if you have <info name="now_playing"/>somewhere later (though you should get a warning "Use of uninitialized value" - both in original and contatenation versions (in your OP you have not "use warnings" on).

I'm fairly new to Perl also and had a question very similar to yours - I was attempting to extract certain tags and values out of an atom feed. The discussion thread, with several examples provided, can be found here:
http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=1039168

I recommend the example posted by POJ as it allows you to extract values based on the tag using Rules. Very handy.

Matt

Adding the contatenation sign did the trick, thanks!