Perl and XML

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

Thank You for your replies monks, I was getting the hash as an input from a file with incorrect structuring. Anyways, the structure was corrected and I am now getting the Hash structure as

$FIELDS = {
'AA' => {
        'Description' => '',
        'Type' => 'Module',
        'File' => 'Sample1.pl',
        },
        'BB' => {
        'Description' => 'Initiator',
        'Type' => 'Methods',
        'File' => 'Sample1.pl',
        },
        'CC' => {
        'Description' => 'Destructor',
        'Type' => 'Methods',
        'File' => 'Sample2.pl',
        'Values' => {
            '1' => 'Ignore',
            '2' => 'Retry',
            '3' => 'Abort'
            }
    },
[download]

Using XML::Simple, I was able to convert it to basic XML as follows

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<data>
<AA>
<Description></Description>
<Type>Module</Type>
<File>Sample1.pl</File>
</AA>

<BB>
<Description>Initiator</Description>
<Type>Methods</Type>
<File>Sample1.pl</File>
</BB>

<CC>
<Description>Destructor</Description>
<Type>Methods</Type>
<File>Sample2.pl</File>
<Value>
<1>Ignore</1>
<2>Retry</2>
<3>Abort</3>
</Value>
</C>
</data>
[download]

As you can see the XML tags <1> <2> <3> would be illegal, so I want to convert the data to something like following:

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<data>
<Node No='1' Label='AA'>
<Description></Description>
<Type>Module</Type>
<File>Sample1.pl</File>
</Node>

<Node No= '2' Label='BB'>
<Description>Initiator</Description>
<Type>Methods</Type>
<File>Sample1.pl</File>
</Node>

<Node No='3' Label='CC'>
<Description>Destructor</Description>
<Type>Methods</Type>
<File>Sample2.pl</File>
<Value No='1'>Ignore</Value>
<Value No='2'>Retry</Value>
<Value No='3'>Abort</Value>
</Node>
</data>
[download]

I am unsure of how XML::Writer or XML::Twig could be able to parse the Perl Hash into the XML structure I need. Any Suggestions?

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Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Help with Perl and XML by leonardohelman (Initiate) on Apr 25, 2008 at 20:00 UTC
Hey, this is your problem, what do you want to do?. `my %Fields = ( 'filename' =>{ Type => 'A'{ Name => 'Abstract'{ }; }; ....` [download] What is this? The syntax should be something like `%F = ( aa => { BB => 'cc' }, ll => { NN => 'xx', MM => 'yy', )` [download] Here "use strict; use warnings;" is your friend (and Data::Dumper also) And also `perldoc perldsc` [download] Leonardo Helman Pert Consultores SRL Argentina	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Help with Perl and XML by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on Apr 25, 2008 at 19:57 UTC
The syntax where you declare `%Fields` is immediately suspect. What exactly do you expect, for example, `Type => 'A'{` to produce as a data structure? Perhaps a review of perldsc, perlref, and perlreftut would help you with that. While you're at it, you might want to look at perlstyle.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Help with Perl and XML by apl (Monsignor) on Apr 25, 2008 at 19:58 UTC
What version of Perl are you using? Mine is fairly old, but your perlstruct.pl doesn't look validly constructed to me. This is confirmed when I try running it with `use strict; use warnings;`. `Type => 'A'{ Name => 'Abstract'{ }; }; Type => 'B'{ Name => 'Preface'{ }; };` [download] especially looks strange.	[reply] [d/l] [select]