Many of the approaches in this thread centered around using XML::Simple. Why not try using XML::SAX and build your own SAX event handler. I believe it can satify your requirements while at the same time providing more flexibility than XML::Parser's interface.

A good introduction to creating SAX event handlers can be found at XML::SAX::Intro in the XML::SAX distribution on CPAN.

To address you're question here's a working example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

use strict;
use XML::SAX;
use Data::Dumper qw(DumperX);

my $handler = My::SAXParser->new;
my $parser  = XML::SAX::ParserFactory->parser(Handler => $handler);

#pass the XML document at the bottom __DATA__ tag to the parser
$parser->parse_string(do { local $/; <DATA> });

print DumperX($handler->nodes);


{
  #this class keeps track of the processed nodes

  package My::SAXParser;

  use strict;
  use base qw(XML::SAX::Base);
  use Class::MethodMaker
    get_set => ['nodes'],
    list    => ['element_stack'];

  use constant SKIP_NODE => 'xml';

  sub start_document { shift->nodes({}) }

  sub start_element {
    my $self = shift;
    my $el   = shift;

    return if $el->{Name} eq SKIP_NODE;

    #make note of which element we are processing - in the stack
    $self->element_stack_push(\my %element);

    foreach my $attribute (values %{$el->{Attributes}}) {
      push @{$element{attributes}}, @$attribute{qw(Name Value)};
    }

    #keep track of all interesting element nodes
    push @{ $self->nodes->{$el->{Name}} }, \%element;

    return $self->SUPER::start_element($el);
  }

  sub characters {
    my $self = shift;
    return unless $self->element_stack_count;  #are there any pending 
+element nodes to process?
    return $self->SUPER::characters($self->element_stack->[-1]->{text}
+ .= shift->{Data});
  }

  sub end_element {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->element_stack_pop;  #element has been processed, pop it off
+ the stack
    return $self->SUPER::end_element(shift);
  }
}

__DATA__
<xml>
<requirement contactname="Joe Average">A power cord.</requirement>
<requirement contactname="Jane Smith" contactnumber="555-1212">A node 
+name</requirement>
</xml>
[download]

This should produce the following output:

$VAR1 = {
          'requirement' => [
                             {
                               'text' => 'A power cord.',
                               'attributes' => [
                                                 'contactname',

                                                 'Joe Average'
                                               ]
                             },
                             {
                               'text' => 'A node name',
                               'attributes' => [
                                                 'contactnumber',
                                                 '555-1212',
                                                 'contactname',
                                                 'Jane Smith'
                                               ]
                             }
                           ]
        };
[download]

I tested this code with the other XML document example you posted in this thread. It can parse it and I believe it produces a pretty reasonable output.

Also if performance is an issue it's possible to gain further speed increases using XML::LibXML::SAX::Parser or XML::SAX::Expat. Either of these modules can pretty much just be dropped into the above script by modifying two lines of the script's code: the use and new constructor statements.