Thanks, That makes a lot of sense. I am still getting the error: 
Can't call method "getData" on an undefined value at parse_xml.pl line
+ 87.

[download]
New code: 
my $Long = $contact->getElementsByTagName( "Longitude" );
my $long = $Long->item(0)->getChildAtIndex(0)->getData();

# declare lexical variable *outside the scope of the eval*
my $BusUrl;

# trap potential error
eval {
   $BusUrl = $contact->getElementsByTagName( "BusinessUrl" );
};

# check if tag retrieval failed
if($@) {
   # assign an empty (but defined) string
   #$BusUrl = '';
}

$bus_url = $BusUrl->item(0)->getChildAtIndex(0)->getData(); # line 87

# change phone number format

[download]

In reply to Re^2: use XML::DOM - what to do with empty tags? by kevyt
in thread use XML::DOM - what to do with empty tags? by kevyt

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