Parsing XML w/ Attributes

jpk236 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Monks:

I'm working on my first perl/xml project (using XML::Simple) and am in desperate need of help. I don't even have sample code I'm proud enough of to show.

I'm trying to parse the following xml config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<config>

   <host1>
      <process name="proc1" />
      <process name="proc2" />
      <process name="proc3" />
      <process name="proc4" />
   </host1>

   <host2>
      <process name="proc5" />
      <process name="proc6" />
      <process name="proc7" />
      <process name="proc8" />
   </host2>

</config>
[download]

The XML config is a list of all of our servers and what processes they're running. I'm given this XML config and have no say over how it's structured.

What I need to be able to do is query the XML config for a particular host (host1, host2, etc.) and have it return the processes (proc1, proc2, etc.).

Thanks in advance.

- Justin

Comment on Parsing XML w/ Attributes Download Code

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Re: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by jrsimmon (Hermit) on Dec 19, 2007 at 20:38 UTC
Proud or not, post what you've got so that you're not just asking us to do your work for you. A couple of tips would be to make sure you've read the doc on XML::Simple, especially pertaining to the ForceArray option.	[reply]
Re^2: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by jpk236 (Monk) on Dec 19, 2007 at 20:47 UTC
Fair enough :-P Between posting and now I've come up with the following code which seems to work: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use XML::Simple; my ($ref); $ref = XMLin('file.xml'); foreach (sort keys %{$ref->{'host1'}->{'process'}}) { print "proc: $_\n"; }` [download] Is this the best way to be doing this? - Justin	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by jrsimmon (Hermit) on Dec 19, 2007 at 21:36 UTC
I would encourage you to use ForceArray. Even if it's not necessary here, down the road you'll almost certainly be glad you started out using it. This is how I would go about what you're doing, using ForceArray. `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use XML::Simple; my $parser = new XML::Simple(ForceArray => 1); my $ref = $parser->XMLin('c:\temp\file.xml'); foreach my $host (keys(%$ref)){ foreach my $proc (keys(%{$ref->{$host}[0]->{process}})){ print "$proc is running on $host\n"; } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by Jenda (Abbot) on Dec 20, 2007 at 00:46 UTC
Re^5: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by jrsimmon (Hermit) on Dec 20, 2007 at 15:53 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: Parsing XML w/ Attributes by pajout (Curate) on Dec 19, 2007 at 22:54 UTC
Perhaps XML::Trivial could help you: `#!/usr/bin/perl use XML::Trivial; use strict; use warnings; foreach my $hostelm (XML::Trivial::parseFile('file.xml')->{0}->ea) { foreach ($hostelm->ea) { print "Host: ".$hostelm->en." Process: ".$_->ah('name')."\n" if $_->en eq 'process'; } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]