Here is the result from xml2XMLRules.pl on the (updated) XML above:

[user@host cwd]>  xml2XMLRules.pl xmltest.xml
{
  'value' => 'content',
  'detail1,detail2,item,summary,xmltest' => 'no content'
}
[download]

Not much help as I already know 'value' is the only thing with content but I do not know what it belongs to if I were to use those rules ...

Hi

So, um, why not use those rules? Then work with the resulting hash?

*tip* ?node_id=3989;BIT=XML%3A%3ARules-%3Enew;HIT=xml ... Re: XML::LibXML drives me to drinking

This might be something like what you were attempting

#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Rules;
use Data::Dump qw/ dd /;

my $rawxml = q{<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
<summary>
  <item>
    <value>1.0</value>
  </item>
</summary>
<detail1>
  <item>
    <value>2.0</value>
  </item>
</detail1>
<detail2>
  <item>
    <value>3.0</value>
  </item>
</detail2>
<value> 11 </value>
</root>
};

dd( XML::Rules->new( rules => [], )->parse( $rawxml ) );
dd( XML::Rules->inferRulesFromExample( $rawxml ) );
dd( XML::Rules->new( rules => XML::Rules->inferRulesFromExample( $rawx
+ml ), )->parse( $rawxml ) );


my ( $summary, $detail1, $detail2 ) ;

my $xr = XML::Rules->new(
    qw/ stripspaces 8 /,
    rules => {
      'detail1,detail2,item,root,summary' => sub { return; },
      'value' => [
            '/root/summary/item' => sub {
                ( $summary, $detail1, $detail2 ) = (); #reset
                $summary = $_[1]->{_content};
                return;
            },
            '/root/detail1/item' => sub {
                $detail1 = $_[1]->{_content};
                return;
            },
            '/root/detail2/item' => sub {
                $detail2 = $_[1]->{_content};
                warn "$summary $detail1 $detail1\n";
                return;
            },
            sub { die "unexpected 'value' at ".join('/','',@{$_[2]}) }
+,
        ],
    },
);

my $ret = $xr->parse( $rawxml );
dd( $ret );


__END__
$ perl xml-rules-1205065.pl
{
  root => {
    _content => "\n\n\n\n\n",
    detail1  => {
                  _content => "\n  \n",
                  item => { _content => "\n    \n  ", value => { _cont
+ent => "2.0" } },
                },
    detail2  => {
                  _content => "\n  \n",
                  item => { _content => "\n    \n  ", value => { _cont
+ent => "3.0" } },
                },
    summary  => {
                  _content => "\n  \n",
                  item => { _content => "\n    \n  ", value => { _cont
+ent => "1.0" } },
                },
    value    => { _content => " 11 " },
  },
}
{
  "detail1,detail2,item,root,summary" => "no content",
  "value" => "content",
}
{
  root => {
    detail1 => { item => { value => "2.0" } },
    detail2 => { item => { value => "3.0" } },
    summary => { item => { value => "1.0" } },
    value   => " 11 ",
  },
}
1.0 2.0 2.0
unexpected 'value' at /root at xml-rules-1205065.pl line 54.
[download]

I suppose the real reason I do not want to use the rules it provides is that is is then no better than XML::Simple.

The "real" XML is much more complicated and means I have to reference items 6 or 7 levels deep with some labels as long as 38 characters long. So, it would be something like $hash->{'SomeVeryLongCollectionName'}->{'AnotherLowerLevelOfItems'}->{'Summary'}->{'Collections'}->{'Collection'}->{'Item'}->{'Value'} which is VERY unattractive.

The use of XML::Rules allows me, if done properly, to build my own hash and not have to deal with all of those levels and structure which are just unwieldly.

And using the rules as specified, and as you showed in your example, I still have to have the full, very long path to deal with in order to figure out which item I am dealing with but maybe gets me closer. I will try some variations of your code and see where it gets me ...