I am trying to scan through a hash ref and get the value of certain elements (Regardless of the data structure). Below is some sample code that will hopefully explain what I am trying to accomplish. I have a data structure. I want to be able to get the value by just sending to a sub routine 
    my @return = &sub('Root->PersonA->Pets');

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then it could send me back all the results for that locations. In the data below it would send back PetA and PetB. Notice the different structure between PersonA and PersonB. If I sent Root->PersonB->Pets I would get back PetAA and PetBB without having to change anything. In the example below I convert everything to xml then use the XMLPAth to find the results. I do not think this is the best way but not sure how else to do it. Any ideas? 
    use Data::Dumper;
    use XML::Simple;
    use XML::XPath;
    use XML::XPath::XMLParser;
    my $perl_datastructure = {
        Root    =>    
                {    
                'PersonA'    => {
                    Pets    =>
                        [
                            PetA,
                            PetB,
                        ],
                },
                'PersonB' =>
                [
                    {
                        Pets    => PetAA,
                    },
                    {
                        Pets    => PetBB,
                    },
                ],
            },
    };
    
    print Dumper($perl_datastructure);
    
    $xmlstring = XMLout($perl_datastructure, NoAttr => 1, KeepRoot => 
+1);
    #print $xmlstring;
    
    my $xp = XML::XPath->new( xml => $xmlstring );
        
    my $nodeset = $xp->find("//Root/PersonB/Pets");
    foreach my $node ($nodeset->get_nodelist) {
        my $perldata = XMLin( XML::XPath::XMLParser::as_string($node) 
+);
        print $perldata, "\n";
    }

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In reply to Perl Hash Ref by clintonm9

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