Nothing wrong here, there are just easier ways to code most XML processing than this.

BTW you don't have to use a flipflop variable, you can just call current_element on the parser object to get the element in which you are (and context will give you the stack of open elements), man XML::Expat::Parser is an oft-overlooked resource that will give you the list of methods you can use on the parser object.

But really, try using XML::LibXML or XML::Twig, have a look at the various comparisons at xmltwig.com (look at the bottom 3 articles), and you will see what a difference XPath can make.