I am using XML::Parser as part of a subroutine to find a specific element and attribute. I have run up against the warning "Variable "$targetAttribute" will not stay shared at ./parser.pl line 35 (#1)". From reading the fabulous perlmonk archives (and the diagnostics) I realize that the reason for this warning is that the nested sub I have written is visible globally and perl can't know where to bind names. The suggested fix is an anonymous sub - but, given that I need to pass a reference to this nested subroutine - it's a handler for events generated by the parsefile method - as an option to the XML::Parser object, I don't know how (or even if I can) use an anonymous sub. Any suggestions? 
use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;

my $historyFile = 'gsHistToMassSto';

my $doneFlag = findTargetAttribute('last','WorkFlowStatus','status',$h
+istoryFile);
print "My DONE flag = $doneFlag\n";

eval {my $result = findTargetAttribute('first','WorkFlow','status',$hi
+storyFile);
print "My result is $result\n";};

sub findTargetAttribute{

  use XML::Parser;

  my ($location,$targetElement,$targetAttribute,$file) = @_;
  my $parser = XML::Parser->new(Handlers => {Start => \&handle_start})
+;
  my @results;
  print "$location, $targetElement, $targetAttribute, $file\n";
  $parser->parsefile($file);

  if($location eq 'first'){return $results[0]}
  if($location eq 'last'){return $results[-1]}
  else {return @results}

  sub handle_start {
    my($expat, $element, %attrs) = @_;
    if($element eq $targetElement){
      print "Target = $targetElement\n";
       if(%attrs){
    while(my($key, $value) = each(%attrs)){
      if($key eq $targetAttribute){push @results,$value;}
    }
      }
    }  
  }
}

[download]

In reply to nested subroutines by marknm

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.