in reply to Parsing dodgy XML

As a different approach, merlyn describes his use of HTML::Parser for parsing xml with dodgy characters in his column The Wrong Parser for the Right Reasons (Jun 03). Maybe it's useful for you.

--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}