Parsing xml

alexsc01 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

HI, I have this xml

<blocks_conduit_model_service_course generator="zend" version="1.0">
<get_course_grades>
<users>
<id_8004><user><id>8004</id><fullname>Päivi Timonen</fullname><usernam
+e>timopa01</username><idnumber/></user></id_8004>

<id_601><user><id>601</id><fullname>Pekka Harjula</fullname><username>
+harjpe01</username><idnumber/></user></id_601>

<id_5><user><id>5</id><fullname>Hanna Laitinen</fullname><username>lai
+tha02</username><idnumber/></user></id_5>
</users>
</blocks_conduit_model_service_course>


I'm using XML::Simple

print "$response_xml->{get_course_grades}->{users}->{id_8004}->{user}-
+>{username}" ;
[download]

I need to get the username from each element. How can I loop thru all the elements? id_ can be what ever and is in no order.

Comment on Parsing xml Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Parsing xml by choroba (Cardinal) on Feb 19, 2016 at 11:43 UTC
Your XML is not well formed - the `get_course_grades` tag is not closed. Don't use XML::Simple. Its documentation itself tells you you shouldn't. You can use XML::LibXML instead. `#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use XML::LibXML; my $xml = 'XML::LibXML'->load_xml(location => shift); for my $username ($xml->findnodes('//username')) { print $username->textContent, "\n"; }` [download] I usually use XML::XSH2, which is a wrapper around XML::LibXML. It simplifies the above code to `open file.xml ; for //username echo (.) ;` [download] ($q=q:Sq=~/;[c](.)(.)/;chr(-\|\|-\|5+lengthSq)`"S\|oS2"`map{chr \|+ord }map{substrSq`S_+\|`\|}3E\|-\|`7**2-3:)=~y+S\|`+$1,++print+eval$q,q,a, [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Parsing xml by alexsc01 (Novice) on Feb 19, 2016 at 11:55 UTC
HI, Thanks I used this and it worked fine. `my $xml = 'XML::LibXML'->load_xml(string => $response_xml); for my $username ($xml->findnodes('//username')) { print $username->textContent, "\n"; }` [download] Yes the xml was badly formed I copied a long string and just pasted a few rows as an example. Thanks for your help.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Parsing xml by Discipulus (Canon) on Feb 19, 2016 at 11:49 UTC
Hello alexsc01 First of all read and understand XML::Simple has to go! Now that you know that probably are on the wrong path you can chose other useful module to parse XML, i can say i use XML::Twig so consider a read of the XML::Twig website rewrite-xml-with-xmltwig process-xml-data-with-xmltwig L* There are no rules, there are no thumbs.. Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.	[reply]
Re: Parsing xml by kcott (Archbishop) on Feb 19, 2016 at 12:12 UTC
G'day alexsc01, I suggest you use XML::Simple's XMLin() function to get your data into a Perl structure. You can then examine this and determine what string of hash keys (or array indices) you need. XML::Simple::FAQ has an example of this under "How do I know what my data structure should look like?". — Ken	[reply]