Dear Monks,

I recently started dealing with a bunch of deeply nested XML documents that I'm having to parse and generate reports from. The code works and does the job, but I think that I'm going about it the wrong way - the code I've created is an ugly, inflexible mess of for loops and crazy long references. My guess is that there's a better way. I would deeply appreciate any pointers in a better direction.

Here are the details:

I've used XML::Simple to convert the XML into data structures like so: 

my $data = $xml->XMLin("$fail", ForceArray => 1);

[download]

I'm then recursing through the data structure like so. It's super ugly: 


my $numclients =  @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}};
for (my $i=0; $i<$numclients; $i++) {
    my $clientname = $data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{name}[0];
    my $numsites = @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}};
    for (my $s=0; $s<$numsites; $s++) {
    my $sitename = $data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}[$s]->{name}
+[0];
   
    my $numservs = @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}[$s]->{ser
+vers}};
        my %servers;
        my @fails;
        my $report;
        for (my $sv=0; $sv<$numservs; $sv++) {
            if ($data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}[$s]->{servers}
+[$sv]->{server}[0]->{name}[0]) {
                my $server = $data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}[$
+s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{name}[0];
                eval {
                    my $numfails = @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->
+{site}[$s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{failed_checks}};  
                    for (my $fc=0; $fc<$numfails; $fc++) {
                        my $numchecks = @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[
+$i]->{site}[$s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{failed_checks}[$fc]->{
+check}};
                        for (my $check=0; $check<$numchecks; $check++)
+ {
                            if ($data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site
+}[$s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{failed_checks}[$fc]->{check}[$ch
+eck]->{dsc_247}[0] == 1) {
                              my $description = $data->{items}[0]->{cl
+ient}[$i]->{site}[$s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{failed_checks}[$
+fc]->{check}[$check]->{description}[0];
                                if ($description !~ /Performance Monit
+oring/ ) {   
                                    push (@fails, $description);
                                    $report = 1;
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }; # End eval
                eval {
                    if ( @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i]->{site}[$s]
+->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{overdue}[0]->{description}[0]} ) {
                    my $overdue_ref = @{$data->{items}[0]->{client}[$i
+]->{site}[$s]->{servers}[$sv]->{server}[0]->{overdue}[0]->{descriptio
+n}[0]};
                    push (@fails, $overdue_ref);
                    $report=1;
                    }
                }; # end eval

[download]

In reply to A sane method for parsing deeply nested XML by jmensel

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