<lists>
<list params="123">First</list>
<list params="456">Second</list>
</lists>

use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

$Data::Dumper::Indent = 1;

my $xml = XMLin(\*DATA, forcearray => 1);
print Dumper $xml;


__DATA__
<xml>
<tabs>
<tab name="foo">
<flag name="one" params="123">First</flag>
<list name="two" params="456">Second</list>
<list name="three" params="abc">Third</list>
</tab>
</tabs>
<lists>
<list params="123">First</list>
<list params="456">Second</list>
</lists>
</xml>
[download]

  'lists' => [
    {
      'list' => [
        {
          'params' => '123',
          'content' => 'First'
        },
        {
          'params' => '456',
          'content' => 'Second'
        }
      ]
    }

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Thanks jeffa. I had tried something similar, but instead of forcearray=>1 I used forecarray['lists']. I could not get it to work. Unfortunately this solution fails on

<lists>
<list name="one" params="456">First</list>
<flag name="two" params="123">Second</flag>
<list name="three" params="abc">Third</list>
<lists>
[download]

When I tried it like this, it separated the lists and the flag into separate hashes in the array. I want the user to be able to specify any order (and there will be other tags, e.g. entry, title.

--traveler

Looks like the problem is in the design and not the tool. Question: are lists, entries, and titles types of tags, or are they something else? If you want them to be tags, then make them common tags that can have different attributes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tags>
<tag type="title" params="blah">Zero</tag>
<tag type="list" params="123">First</tag>
<tag type="entry" params="456">Second</tag>
<tag type="flag" params="123">Third</tag>
</tags>
[download]

When run through the same code, this output is generated:

$VAR1 = {
  'tags' => [
    {
      'tag' => [
        {
          'params' => 'blah',
          'content' => 'Zero',
          'type' => 'title'
        },
        {
          'params' => '123',
          'content' => 'First',
          'type' => 'list'
        },
        {
          'params' => '456',
          'content' => 'Second',
          'type' => 'entry'
        },
        {
          'params' => '123',
          'content' => 'Third',
          'type' => 'flag'
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
};
[download]

There are advantages to both approaches. This approach allows you to preserve the order of your 'tags', but the other approach allows you to drill-down to a specific list of tags in O(1).

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

XML::Simple cannot give you one array containing both <flag> and <list> elements - that's the price you pay for simplicity.

You could change your XML so that the elements had the same name and the type was determined through an attribute. You should set keyattr => [] to ensure an array of hashes doesn't get 'folded' into a hash of hashes. That will be happening at the moment since 'name' is one of the default values in keyattr.

Of course changing your XML because the tool is not powerful enough to work with it might suggest it's time to change the tool. XML::Twig would be worth a look.

Thanks. Fortunately it is early enough to change the XML.

--traveler