I'm trying to provide a tool that will allow a user to create their own control menu. The menu file format is in XML. In my design, there are 3 types of menu "items" that can be defined. The item's attributes are determined by the item type (command, submenu, separator) The command that I'm using to read the xml: 
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
XMLin($menufile,forcearray=>['item','command','exec','menu'],keyattr=>
+['name'],suppressempty=>undef);

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I expected that all "item"s would be turned into arrays, but that doesn't happen when trying to build the "SoftwareMenu" which only contains other submenus. I get a "Not an ARRAY reference" error. If I add a "blank" item to the SoftwareMenu, the code works. Any help would be appreciated. An example of my XML: 
<opt>
   <menu name="MainMenu"> 
      <label> OPS Menu </label>
      <item type="command">
         <label> EDM </label>
         <exec>
            <run> edmBeta </run>
         </exec>
      </item>
      <item type="submenu">
         <name> SoftwareMenu </name>
      </item>
   </menu>
   <menu name="SoftwareMenu">
      <label> Software Tools </label>
      <item type="submenu">
         <name> IOCMenu </name>
      </item>
   </menu>
</opt>

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In reply to XML::Simple help by mjoyce

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