From:

           perldoc -q 'How do I test whether two arrays or hashes are 
+equal?'



           use FreezeThaw qw(cmpStr cmpStrHard);

           %a = %b = ( "this" => "that", "extra" => [ "more", "stuff" 
+] );
           $a{EXTRA} = \%b;
           $b{EXTRA} = \%a;

           printf "a and b contain %s hashes\n",
               cmpStr(\%a, \%b) == 0 ? "the same" : "different";

           printf "a and b contain %s hashes\n",
               cmpStrHard(\%a, \%b) == 0 ? "the same" : "different";


       The first reports that both those the hashes contain the
       same data, while the second reports that they do not.
       Which you prefer is left as an exercise to the reader.
[download]

Not exactly what was asked for, comparing the other end of th transform between XML and perl structures.

Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com