It's as if the use was never executed, the use failed but the exception was caught, or if it's not loading the module it should load.

What does
perl -we "use XML::Simple; print $INC{'XML/Simple.pm'}"
give you? A warning or a file name?

If it returns the a file name, can you give us the first 20-50 lines of that file? What follows is the top lines from the newest version, but even as far back 1.06 is very similar

>perl -we "use XML::Simple; print $INC{'XML/Simple.pm'}"
r:/Utils/perl/site/lib/XML/Simple.pm

>type "r:\Utils\perl\site\lib\XML\Simple.pm"
# $Id: Simple.pm,v 1.23 2005/01/29 04:16:10 grantm Exp $

package XML::Simple;

=head1 NAME

XML::Simple - Easy API to maintain XML (esp config files)

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    use XML::Simple;

    my $ref = XMLin([<xml file or string>] [, <options>]);

    my $xml = XMLout($hashref [, <options>]);

Or the object oriented way:

    require XML::Simple;

    my $xs = new XML::Simple(options);

    my $ref = $xs->XMLin([<xml file or string>] [, <options>]);

    my $xml = $xs->XMLout($hashref [, <options>]);

(or see L<"SAX SUPPORT"> for 'the SAX way').

To catch common errors:

    use XML::Simple qw(:strict);

(see L<"STRICT MODE"> for more details).

=cut

# See after __END__ for more POD documentation


# Load essentials here, other modules loaded on demand later

use strict;
use Carp;
require Exporter;


######################################################################
+########
# Define some constants
#

use vars qw($VERSION @ISA @EXPORT @EXPORT_OK $PREFERRED_PARSER);

@ISA               = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT            = qw(XMLin XMLout);
@EXPORT_OK         = qw(xml_in xml_out);
$VERSION           = '2.14';
$PREFERRED_PARSER  = undef;
[download]