correlating things between structures

Maybe Data::Validate::Structure is worth a look too. But when you want to use XPath like functionality I don't see the point of doing it in a non-XML way. Maybe you have to rethink the problem. Depending on the complexity of your data structure generating XML out of it might be straightforward (XML is hierarchical). Then you can use all the XML tooling you like. With XMLSchema you can do powerful validations (there are limitations of course). The requirement you describe: a set of keys is dependent on a set of keys in another part of the structure sounds a bit tricky but could (maybe) be handled by using key, keyref and unique constructs. It works much like the primary key/foreign key concept in a RDBMS. A small sample taken from W3C to illustrate:

<xs:key name="fullName">
 <xs:selector xpath=".//person"/>
 <xs:field xpath="forename"/>
 <xs:field xpath="surname"/>
</xs:key>

<xs:keyref name="personRef" refer="fullName">
 <xs:selector xpath=".//personPointer"/>
 <xs:field xpath="@first"/>
 <xs:field xpath="@last"/>
</xs:keyref>

<xs:unique name="nearlyID">
 <xs:selector xpath=".//*"/>
 <xs:field xpath="@id"/>
</xs:unique>

[download]

There are also other schema languages like relaxng and good old DTDs (well more old than good:).

In reply to Re: Perl Data Structure Validation Part 2 by dHarry
in thread Perl Data Structure Validation Part 2 by zerohero

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