Matts++ (like he needs any more xp but it's the thought that counts)

I asked this same question on the mailing list a while ago :)
If you still like the thought of XPath over DOM (as I did/do) but would like to preserve/edit/add... CDATA then I found XML::LibXML a great alternative to XML::XPath. (plus it works well with XML::LibXSLT which I beleive is faster than sablotron)

<edit> added some code </edit> 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use XML::LibXML;

undef $/;

my $XML=<DATA>;

my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $xmlp = $parser->parse_string($XML);

print $xmlp->toString; #before munge

foreach my $node ($xmlp->findnodes('/foo/bar/text')) { 
    my $data = your_munge_function($node->findvalue('text()'));
    $node->findnodes('text()')->get_node(1)->setData($data);
}

print $xmlp->toString; #after munge

# functions
sub your_munge_function
  { return "munged $_[0]"; }

# data
__DATA__
<foo>
<bar>
<text id="text1"><![CDATA[La dee da de da.<br>Foo bar baz]]></text>
<text id="text2">normal text</text>
</bar>
</foo>

[download]

In reply to Re: Re: XML::XPath and preserving CDATA fields by IOrdy
in thread XML::XPath and preserving CDATA fields by mfriedman

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.