I want to preface this by saying that I do not have a computer science degree, so I apologize if this question is boneheaded.

I am trying to build a very simple XML DTD parser in Perl. What I can't figure out, though, is if an element in the DTD is the parent element of another in that DTD (and so on and so forth) how I can follow them down for an indeterminate amount of levels.

For example. Lets say there is an element called < Particle > that was the parent of two elements called < Proton > and < Neutron > -- and they in turn were parents for elements < Top > , < Bottom > , < Charm > , and < Beauty > respectively. How can I create a hash with those elements as keys without knowing how many levels down the relationship goes?

I really hope this is making sense, because I feel that it shouldn't be that difficult. I could certainly figure it out if I knew that they were only going to go say 10 levels down, or a hundred, or some finite number, but I won't necessarily have that information.

Any guidance from the kinda and gentle monks here will be greatly appreciated.

jupe

Edit kudra, 2002-05-01 Changed title