Your problem is that your data is being stored as an attrib.

Try the "noattr" option for XML::Simple.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.6.0 -w
use strict;

use XML::Simple;

my $xs = XML::Simple->new();

my %data;

$data{text} = q{
line 1 text
line 2 text
line 3 text
};

print $xs->XMLout(\%data, noattr => 1)
[download]

Outputs:

:!./t1.pl
<opt>
  <text>
line 1 text
line 2 text
line 3 text
</text>
</opt>
[download]

The data will be preserved inside the tags, rather than as
an attrib of the tag itself.
Wonko