Insofar as possible, do not write Perl code that must match the structure of an XML construct: use XPath for its intended purpose. XML::LibXML includes complete XPath support, thanks to the libxml2 binary library which is an industry standard used by many, many toolsets. Even if you cannot construct an XPath expression that exactly matches what you are looking for (or if you simply do not want to take the time to try ...), XPath can certainly hand you a simple list through which your Perl code can now simply iterate.

(Also bear in mind that most spreadsheet(!) tools also know about XML and XPath, such that sometimes you can avoid the actual business need for "a custom (Perl or otherwise) program" ... altogether. The very best program is the one that you actually didn't have to write, and this is often the case with XML.)

In reply to Re: XML data extraction by Anonymous Monk
in thread XML data extraction by snehit.ar

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