I have a bit of xml that uses numbers as elements.

If you change your DTD to something that permits this:

<settings>
    <node item="1">Your Name</node>
    <node item="2">His Name</node>
    <node item="3">324324324</node>
</settings>
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

The proper format might even be closer to:

<settings>
    <your_name>Your Name</your_name>
    <his_name>His Name</his_name>
    <number>324324324</number>
</settings>
[download]

XML markup should be descriptive. 1, 2 and 3, whether in tag names or as the only piece of information in the node tags are quite useless. And Perl will be just as happy to go through the keys of a hash than to the indexes in an array (BTW this comment is not directed to you merlyn ;--)

--
The Error Message is GOD - MJD

I think I see part of the problem... the thing is, both the key and the value has meaning. In this case, I have a list of DID (Division ID) =< Division Name and in this file, DID => UID (Unique Member ID) and the reverse UID => DID to show what divisions a specific member is in. I'm just trying to store it. I've been using XML::Simple for a while now on other types of data, but it falls apart when the key is a number... :(



---


"Weird things happen, get used to it."

Flame ~ Lead Programmer: GMS

As I said, I know it's breaking the rules, so it's technically not W3C XML, but it's what XML::Simple end's up outputting and calling XML, so I don't know what to do about it.

I have a data structure like this:

{
   'uid' => {
      '1' => ['3','4','5','6'],
      '2' => ['4','3','1','5'],
   },
   'did' => {
      '1' => '2',
      '3' => ['1','2'],
      '4' => ['1','2'],
      '5' => ['1','2'],
      '6' => '1',
   },
}
[download]


When I run XMLout() from XML::Simple on that structure, I get:


<opt>
  <did 1="2" 6="1">
    <3>1</3>
    <3>2</3>
    <4>1</4>
    <4>2</4>
    <5>1</5>
    <5>2</5>
  </did>
  <uid>
    <1>3</1>
    <1>4</1>
    <1>5</1>
    <1>6</1>
    <2>4</2>
    <2>3</2>
    <2>1</2>
    <2>5</2>
  </uid>
</opt>
[download]



So how can I fix it? I'm open to just about anything here including alternative storage systems, but XMLin() won't read what XMLout() outputs. Is there a way to trick XML::Parser (or expat or whatever it's called) into thinking <1>234</1> is valid?



---


"Weird things happen, get used to it."

Flame ~ Lead Programmer: GMS

I think you are using the wrong tool here. If you really want to dump this structure as XML you could use Data::DumpXML (and its friend Data::DumpXML::Parser).

--
The Error Message is GOD - MJD

This could be better, but you get the idea, just copy the hash with a tacked on token to all the hash keys.

my %hash = qw(1 a 2 b 3 c);
my $fixed_href = {};

fix_hash(\%fix_hash, $fixed_href);

sub fix_hash {
  my ($old, $new) = @_;
  while (my ($key, $value) = each %$old) {
    (my $nkey = $key) =~ s/^(?=\d)/N/;
     if (ref($value) eq 'HASH') {
       $new_value = {};
       $new->{$nkey} = $new_value;
       fix_hash($value, $new_value;
     } else {
       $new->{$nkey} = $value;
     }
  }
}
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XML::Parser will not let it slide, because that is not valid XML. XML::Parser (expat, really) conforms extremely tightly to the XML standard. You need to get your data source to fix it, or if that's not possible perhaps run some regexes on the XML file before running through the parser.