I had to tweak it just a bit... for some reason I was getting the error Can't use global $_ in "my" at ./twig3.pl line 15, near "my $_ " and I added passing the filename as a command line variable.

#!/usr/opt/perl5/bin/perl -sw

# use strict;
use XML::Twig;

# my $xmlfile=@ARGV;
my $twig = XML::Twig->new();
$twig->parsefile($xmlfile);
my $root = $twig->root;

my @nodes1 = $root->get_xpath('//Holding');
for my $hold (@nodes1){
  print "\nId = ".$hold->att('id')."\n";
  my @nodes2 = $hold->get_xpath('Policy/KeyedValue/KeyValue');
  for $_ (@nodes2){
    print $_->prev_sibling_text." = ";
    print $_->text."\n";
  }
}

./twig3.pl -xmlfile=a2b9f375-51fe-41a1-86ab-069561517890.xml

Id = Holding_a344e55a-1471-4c90-aa94-481b434a5b12
AccountType = UTMA_UGMA
CheckIndicator = No
1035ExchangeIncluded = No
SponsorName = Transamerica

Id = Holding_8f6e6000-6cc5-4e7a-b5e8-3acd2ee03468
OldProductType = 401K
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this will get me on my way! Thank you, you help is much appreciated. Also a note, I've discovered during this adventure that the file is an ACORD standard file https://www.acord.org/standards/downloads/Pages/PCSPublic1.aspx for what its worth. Now I just need to figure out how to dissect the sub-attributes and insert them into the XPath.

Again, thank you.

XML::Twig has this note against get_xpath

XML::Twig does not provide natively full XPATH support, but you can use XML::Twig::XPath to get findnodes to use XML::XPath as the XPath engine, with full coverage of the spec.

so try this

#!perl
use strict;
use XML::Twig::XPath;

my $twig = XML::Twig::XPath->new();
$twig->parsefile('txlife.xml');
my $root = $twig->root;
my $xpath = q!//Party[@id=//Relation[child::RelationRoleCode[@tc='37']
+]/@RelatedObjectID]/Producer/CarrierAppointment/CompanyProducerID!;
my @nodes = $root->findnodes($xpath);
for (@nodes){
  print $_->text;
}
[download]

Outputs : 459JQ
poj

So, I tried to use a variable to return the values from the XPath, and it's not liking it.. I get an invalid query error. Here is the subroutine I'm using. I must be missing something. I added a few statements to help me see what was happening. The goal is for the XPaths to come from a configuration file (as there are about a dozen, and there are other formats that will be added in the future so there may be hundreds ultimatley) rather than hard coded, but for testing and development I'm doing it this way.

$twig = XML::Twig::XPath->new();
$twig->parsefile($xmlfile);
$root = $twig->root;

$XPV='//Party[@id=//Relation[child::RelationRoleCode[@tc="37"]]/@Relat
+edObjectID]/Producer/CarrierAppointment/CompanyProducerID';
my $retval1 = get_xpath_value($XPV);
$XPV='//OLifE/Party[@id=//OLifE/Relation[RelationRoleCode@tc=8]/@Relat
+edObjectID]/Person/FirstName';
my $retval2 = get_xpath_value($XPV);
print "CompanyProducerID: $retval1 \nFirstName: $retval2\n";

sub get_xpath_value {

   my ($argvalx) = @_;
   print "argvalx: $argvalx\n";
   my $xpath = "q!" . $argvalx . "!";
   print "doing XPATH query on $xpath\n";
   my @nodes = $root->findnodes($xpath);
   for (@nodes){
     print $_->text;
     return $_->text;
   }
}


./twig4.pl -xmlfile=a2b9f375-51fe-41a1-86ab-069561517890.xml
argvalx: //Party[@id=//Relation[child::RelationRoleCode[@tc="37"]]/@Re
+latedObjectID]/Producer/CarrierAppointment/CompanyProducerID
doing XPATH query on q!//Party[@id=//Relation[child::RelationRoleCode[
+@tc="37"]]/@RelatedObjectID]/Producer/CarrierAppointment/CompanyProdu
+cerID!
Query:
q!//Party...
^^^
Invalid query somewhere around here (I think)
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my $xpath = q!//Party[@id=//Relation[child::RelationRoleCode[@tc='37']
+]/@RelatedObjectID]/Producer/CarrierAppointment/CompanyProducerID!;
my @nodes = $root->findnodes($xpath);
for (@nodes){
  print $_->text;
}
[download]

OK, that seems to work... I think that was a big piece of the puzzle I was missing. I had not seen the Twig/Xpath module come up anywhere when I was googling.

Thank you!