Esteemed monks,

I'm trying new grounds, and decided I should really start using XML. Ok, so I read XML::Simple, and it really does seem simple enough. Until I ran into the following problem:

I have the following XML:

<config>
  <gallery>
    <template>admin.tmpl</template>
    <directory>..</directory>
  </gallery>
  <pictures>
    <picture>
      <Mtime>1039101693</Mtime>
      <Size>4096</Size>
      <Type>File</Type>
      <Name>picture.jpg</Name>
    </picture>
    <picture>
      <Mtime>1039036371</Mtime>
      <Size>38633</Size>
      <Type>File</Type>
      <Name>test.jpg</Name>
    </picture>
...

[download]

Now say I want to find the Mtime of 'test.jpg'. In the hashref returned by XML::Simple, it would be here: 

  ${$ref->{pictures}->{picture}}[1]->{Mtime}

[download]

(or something similar). But that means that to get the information I have to know it's position in the array. Is there a way to find that position without looping over the whole array? I could defenitly do something like this: 

  $xmlref = grep { $_->{Name} eq 'test.jpg' } @{$ref->{pictures}->{pic
+ture}};

[download]

But that seems wasteful. Is there any other way?

Thanks!

-- Dan

In reply to (z) Finding an XML element with XML::Simple by zigdon

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