I am trying to parse XML weather data from NOAA. Everything has been working great until today.

I'm using XML::Simple

The problems resides here:

my $weatherIconURL = $data->{'data'}->{'parameters'}->{'conditions-icon'}->{'icon-link'}->[0];

Normally the XML for 'icon-link' is formatted like this:

<name>Conditions Icons</name>
        <icon-link>http://www.nws.noaa.gov/weather/images/fcicons/sct.
+jpg</icon-link>
        <icon-link>http://www.nws.noaa.gov/weather/images/fcicons/nra3
+0.jpg</icon-link>
      </conditions-icon>

[download]

My program simple grabs the first URL and this is used to get NOAA's weather graphic.

However, I noticed something peculiar today. The XML for some locations is formatted like this:

<name>Conditions Icons</name>
        <icon-link xsi:nil="true"/>
        <icon-link>http://www.nws.noaa.gov/weather/images/fcicons/nra5
+0.jpg</icon-link>
      </conditions-icon>

[download]

The problem here is the NIL part of the XML:

<icon-link xsi:nil="true"/>

When this is encountered in the XML, my program responds with the following error:

A URI can't be a HASH reference at /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/LWP/Simple.pm line 113

Is there some way that I can ignore <icon-link xsi:nil="true"/> ??? I'm not sure how to get around this.

TIA!

In reply to Problem Parsing XML with Perl by Perobl

Title:
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