I normally use XML::Simple to convert an XML file to a hash array. The following code will store the contents of in.xml in a hash array.

#-- Sample code
use strict;
use XML::Simple;

my $mXML;

$mXML = XMLin('./in.xml',forcearray => 1);
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You might also want to use the Data::Dumper module to view the hash array.

I hope this helps.