G'day atreyu,

If you pass the structure you want to XML::Simple::XMLin():

my $ref = $xmlParser->XMLin(<<'EOX', ForceArray => 1, KeyAttr => { nod
+e => 'id' });
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<test>
  <node id="net_1.2.3.0">
        <desc>network</desc>
  </node>
  <node id="ip_1.2.3.4">
        <desc>ipaddr</desc>
  </node>
</test>
EOX
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You can then look at $ref to see how %ref should have been constructed. Here's print Dumper $ref; output:

$VAR1 = {
          'node' => {
                    'ip_1.2.3.4' => {
                                    'desc' => [
                                              'ipaddr'
                                            ]
                                  },
                    'net_1.2.3.0' => {
                                     'desc' => [
                                               'network'
                                             ]
                                   }
                  }
        };
[download]

So, your

push(@{$ref{'node'}},{
  'id'   => 'net_1.2.3.0',
  'desc' => 'network',
});
[download]

needs to be

push @{$ref{node}}, {
    'net_1.2.3.0' => {
        desc => ['network']
    } 
};
[download]

and similarly for 'ip_1.2.3.4'. With those changes, my /tmp/testfile.xml looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<test>
  <node id="net_1.2.3.0">
    <desc>network</desc>
  </node>
  <node id="ip_1.2.3.4">
    <desc>ipaddr</desc>
  </node>
</test>
[download]