>This line looks strange to me. First, I guess it should read parse_string, and it has 8.3 chars

yes, the parse_xxx functions are implemented in all of the parsers, it seems. (I looked in LibXML for example)

I am not following what you say about AutoSplit...
What is instmodsh?
Another data point is that when running a small program using XML::Simple, I get a different .al, with a full name:

File "HD:Library:Perl:5.8.1:XML:Simple.pm"; Line 287: Can't locate auto/XML/Parser/Expat/parse_uri.al in @INC (@INC contains: /Users/bmarshall/Sources/XmlSimpleTest /System/Library/Perl/5.8.1/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.1 /Library/Perl/5.8.1/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.