You're presumably calling it on the wrong object type.  What does your code/xml look like?

Here's a simple example using getFirstChild that works: 

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::LibXML;

my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc = $parser->parse_fh(\*DATA);

for my $elem ( $doc->getElementsByTagName('foo') ) {
    my $val = $elem->getFirstChild()->nodeValue();

    print "$val\n";   # Foo1 Foo2
}  

__DATA__
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<doc>
  <foo>Foo1<bar>Bar</bar></foo>
  <foo>Foo2</foo>
</doc>

[download]

In reply to Re^3: Missing Node.PM in XML::LibXML v1.69 by almut
in thread Missing Node.PM in XML::LibXML v1.69 by BluePerlDev

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.