Near identical answers :) some of which use http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/#function-contains and some use perl regex (there are more answers if you click parent node)
xpather.pl
Re: Get Node Value from irregular XML (xpather.pl)
Re: Having trouble with siblings
Re^2: XML parsing and Lists
Re: Counting number of child nodes based on element value (typos)
Re^3: Extracting specific childnodes (xpath whitespace)
Re^3: Extracting specific childnodes (play xmllint --shell )
Re: How do i get value of an element if the next elememnt has specific value in XML::LibXML using Xpath?
Re: How do i get value of an element if the next elememnt has specific value in XML::LibXML using Xpath?
Re: How to parse xml with namespase vale in XMl:LibXML? ( XPath error : Undefined namespace prefix )
Re^2: How to parse xml with namespase vale in XMl:LibXML? (xmllint --shell setns / xpathtester)
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17396974/libxml-looping-through-nodes-until

Also forget about XML::Parser its too low level. If you're tempted by that approach use XML::Twig :) it comes with many examples/tutorials / http://xmltwig.org/xmltwig/quick_ref.html, http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/, Taking the Document Object Model (DOM) Approach to XML Documents - For Dummies, XPath Cheat Sheets | DevCheatSheet.com

sample html is book PathEnq - an XPath 2.0 editor, tester, debugger that also serves as a generic online XML analysis tool., PathEnq Screenshots, PathEnq Guide

In reply to Re: How to use of meta characters in search string in XPath in perl by Anonymous Monk
in thread How to use of meta characters in search string in XPath in perl by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.