Here's your first example, rewritten to use XML::LibXML...

use 5.010;
use strict;
use XML::LibXML 1.94;

my $xml = XML::LibXML->load_xml(location => 'input.xml');

foreach my $thing ($xml->findnodes('//thing'))
{
    # The difference between findnodes and findvalues is this:
    # findnodes returns a list of matching XML::LibXML::Node objects;
    # findvalue returns the first matching string (well, an object
    # that overloads stringification anyway). So here we use the
    # latter...
    # 
    my $unique_id = $thing->findvalue('./unique_identifier');
    
    say "==== ", $unique_id;
    
    foreach my $foo ($thing->findnodes('./foos/foo'))
    {
        my $foo_datum = $foo->findvalue('./foo_datum');
        say "foo_datum: ", $foo_datum;
    }

    foreach my $bar ($thing->findnodes('./bars/bar'))
    {
        my $bar_number = $bar->findvalue('./bar_number');
        my $good_info  = $bar->findvalue('./good/good_info');
        say "bar: ", $bar_number, ", good info: ", $good_info;
    }
}

[download]
perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'

In reply to Re: I (Think I) Need to Break Up with XML::Simple and I Don't Know Where to Turn by tobyink
in thread I (Think I) Need to Break Up with XML::Simple and I Don't Know Where to Turn by Randomice

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