I should have clarified the post. The actual "meat and potatoes" parsing is indeed done via XML::Parser on a seperate box. A gateway server receives the XML via a socket connection. This server has to archive the XML into a file. The filename is determined by a couple of the Root attributes. Hence only the Root attributes are needed by the gateway box - it has no need to parse the entire XML 'message'. The 'gateway' server then forwards the XML message, again over a socket connection to the database box - all heaving duty parsing/processing etc is done there.