Of course it is possible. I like using handlers because then you get rid of some of the tree before having to load it entirely in memory, plus I am used to it, and I find it often simpler than using XPath or navigation to get to the elements I want to process.

If size is not a problem you can certainly load the tree, and then write custom code to output the element and the tree "above it":

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use XML::Twig;

my $xml_twig = XML::Twig->new(
    pretty_print => 'indented',
    NoLWP => 1,
    discard_spaces => 1,
    EltClass => 'my_elt',
);

$xml_twig->parse ( \*DATA ) || die "\nError parsing data $@\n";

# here I split on the 'split' attribute, but any other
# way of getting the list of elements to split on is OK
foreach my $elt ($xml_twig->findnodes( '//*[@split]'))
  { print "Element: ", $elt->name, "\n\n", $elt->sub_doc, "\n\n";
    $elt->delete;
  }

package my_elt;

use base 'XML::Twig::Elt';

sub sub_doc    { my $elt= shift; return $elt->start_tags . $elt->sprin
+t . $elt->end_tags; }
sub start_tags { my $elt= shift; return join '', map { $_->start_tag }
+ reverse $elt->ancestors; }
sub end_tags   { my $elt= shift; return join '', map { $_->end_tag   }
+ reverse $elt->ancestors; }

package main;
__DATA__
<myconfig_data foo="bar">
        <level1 split="1">
                <tag>hello1</tag>
        </level1>
        <level2>
          <sub split="1">
                <tag>hello2</tag>
          </sub>
          <sub split="1">
                <tag>hello3</tag>
          </sub>
        </level2>
        <level3 split="1">
                <tag>hello4</tag>
        </level3>
</myconfig_data>

[download]

In reply to Re^3: XML::Twig - parsing an XML doc to separate files : Maintaining 'absolute' path by mirod
in thread XML::Twig - parsing an XML doc to separate files : Maintaining 'absolute' path by jxh

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.