#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Simple;

my $data = {
        e => ['element value'],
        a => 'attribute value'
};

print XMLout($data, RootName => 'root');

__DATA__
<root a="attribute value">
  <e>element value</e>
</root>
[download]

I added some code so I can get the values of the attributes.
I haven't used your code, I bumped into something else.
All works, but why do my attributes + their values within <element> get printed out in double


-Script
-XML
We're getting somewhere

Please do not link off site code. Include it in your node (in readmore tags if it is large). Off site links are prone to breakage and PerlMonks nodes are read by people for years after their initial posting. So, if at all possible keep your node self contained.

Also note that </br> on its own is not valid HTML or XHTML. You can use <br /> for XHTML, but this is more an HTML site so use <br>, or better still, don't use break tags at all!

Thanks for the advice. The script has evolved again into a working one. Everything works without one xml tag in the script.

thank you all for helping me. Not only in this node.

#!/usr/bin/perl --

use strict;
use warnings;
use Cwd;
use Win32::OLE;
use XML::Simple;

my $dir = cwd();
opendir(DIR, ".");
my @file = grep(/\.xml$/,readdir(DIR));
closedir(DIR);

use Data::Dumper;
local $Data::Dumper::Indent=1;
#print Dumper($doc);

###################
#my %hash = (
#        key1  => 'ArraySite',
#        key2  => 'IOPort',
#        key3  => 'AddressGroup',
#        key4  => 'LSS',
#        key5  => 'Array',
#        key6  => 'Rank',
#        key7  => 'ExtentPool',
#        key8  => 'Volume',
#        key9  => 'StorageEnclosure',
#        key10 => 'VolumeGroup',        
#    );
#    
#    for my $key ( keys %hash ) {
#        my $value = $hash{$key};
#        print "$key => $value\n";
#    }    
##############

my $xs1 = XML::Simple->new();
my $doc = $xs1->XMLin($file[0], keyattr=>[], ForceContent=>1, ForceArr
+ay=>1);



for my $sub1 ( sort keys %{ $doc } ){

    my $count = scalar keys %{ $doc }; 
    print "\n$sub1\t";

    for (my $i=0; $i <= $count; $i++) { 
        
        for my $sub2 ( sort keys %{ $doc->{$sub1}[$i] } ){
            my $count2 = @{$doc->{$sub1}[$i]{$sub2}};
            #print "\n\t\t".$count2."\t".$sub2;

            for (my $j=0; $j <= $count2; $j++) { 
                                                
                for my $sub3 ( sort keys %{ $doc->{$sub1}[$i]{$sub2}[$
+j] } ){

                    my $count3 = @{$doc->{$sub1}[$i]{$sub2}[$j]{$sub3}
+};
                    
                    print "\n\t$sub2\t$sub3($count3)";

                    for (my $k=0; $k <= $count3; $k++) {
                         print "\n";
                    
                        for my $sub4 ( sort keys %{ $doc->{$sub1}[$i]{
+$sub2}[$j]{$sub3}[$k] } ){
                                             print "\n\t\t\t$sub4 : ";
                                             print $doc->{$sub1}[$i]{$
+sub2}[$j]{$sub3}[$k]{$sub4};

                        }
                    }             
                }            
            }              
        }
    }
}
[download]

XML

<A>
    <B>
        <C>

            <element type="k" name="p" online="yes"/>
            <element type="i" name="e" online="yes"/>

        </C>

        <D>

            <element type="kd" name="pd" online="no"/>
            <element type="id" name="ed" online="yes"/>
            <element type="yd" name="zd" online="no"/>
        </D>

    </B>

    <Z>

        <C>

            <element type="k" name="z" online="yes"/>
            <element type="t" name="p" online="yes"/>
        </C>

        <E>

            <element type="kd" name="pd" online="no"/>
            <element type="id" name="ed" online="yes"/>

        </E>
        

    </Z>

    </A>
[download]

But I could still use some help... When I add an attribute to lets say tag B my code fails all of a sudden ... Can someone tell me why / advise or point out a solution... The error I get is "Can't use string ("value of attribute") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs""

Thanks so much !

When I add an attribute to lets say tag B...

You are getting the error message because XML::Simple creates a data structure with an array for your elements but a simple scalar value for your attribute.

You can see this if you use Data::Dumper to dump $doc after loading your file.

After changing your B tag to <B type="xxx"> your script produced the following error: Can't use string ("xxx") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use. Here is the structure produced by XMLin:

Read more... (2 kB)

If you look carefully at what has been created for your tag B, you will see that there are three elements in the contained hash, with keys D, C and type. The values of the first two (D and C) are references to arrays but the value of the third is a string. Your program uses all three as if they were references to arrays. Because you have used use strict; (which is a good thing) perl stops when it gets to the string and reports the error.

You can either write your program to check whether a value is a reference or not, using ref or you can provide parameters to XML::Simple to make it load the elements and tags consistently. Which approach is better will depend on what you are doing. You may want to learn both methods so you can decide which is most appropriate.

I'd use something simpler for parsing the XML than XML::Simple, like XML::Parser, although I don't know what you want the final output for so the rendering below may not suit you:

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Parser;

my $xmlStr = <<XML;
<A>
    <B>
        <C>
            <element type="k" name="p" online="yes"/>
            <element type="i" name="e" online="yes"/>
        </C>
        <D>
            <element type="kd" name="pd" online="no"/>
            <element type="id" name="ed" online="yes"/>
            <element type="yd" name="zd" online="no"/>
        </D>
    </B>
    <Z>
        <C>
            <element type="k" name="z" online="yes"/>
            <element type="t" name="p" online="yes"/>
        </C>
        <E>
            <element type="kd" name="pd" online="no"/>
            <element type="id" name="ed" online="yes"/>
        </E>

    </Z>
</A>
XML

use constant kIndentSize => 4;

my $indent = '';
my $xs1 = XML::Parser->new (
    Handlers => {
        Start => sub {start (\$indent, @_);},
        End   => sub {end (\$indent, @_);},
        Char  => sub {char (\$indent, @_);}
    });

$xs1->parse ($xmlStr);


sub start {
    my ($indent, $expat, $element, %attr) = @_;

    print "$$indent$element\n";
    $$indent .= ' ' x kIndentSize;
    print "$$indent$_ : $attr{$_}\n" for sort keys %attr;
    return;
}

sub end {
    my ($indent, $expat, $element) = @_;

    substr $$indent, -(kIndentSize), kIndentSize, '';
    return;
}

sub char {
    my ($indent, $expat, $string) = @_;

    chomp $string;
    $string =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g;
    return unless length $string;

    print "$$indent$string\n";
    return;
}
[download]

Prints:

A
    B
        C
            element
                name : p
                online : yes
                type : k
            element
                name : e
                online : yes
                type : i
        D
            element
                name : pd
                online : no
                type : kd
            element
                name : ed
                online : yes
                type : id
            element
                name : zd
                online : no
                type : yd
    Z
        C
            element
                name : z
                online : yes
                type : k
            element
                name : p
                online : yes
                type : t
        E
            element
                name : pd
                online : no
                type : kd
            element
                name : ed
                online : yes
                type : id
[download]

---

Perl reduces RSI - it saves typing

You should probably change

my $count = scalar keys %{ $doc };
[download]

to

my $count = scalar @{ $doc->{$sub1} };
[download]

And similarly for your other counts.

Update: no, your other counts are fine. And you don't need the scalar as you are assigning to a scalar, so you can do as you have done for the other counts:

my $count = @{ $doc->{$sub1} };
[download]

But I could still use some help... When I add an attribute to lets say tag B my code fails all of a sudden ..

What code do you use to do that? I used

# Add attribute "xxx" with value "yyy" to
# the first (idx 0) "B" child of node $doc.
$doc->{B}[0]{xxx} = 'yyy';
[download]

What is it you actually want to do? Don't talk about the one step, tell us your goal.

XML's that needs to be parsed to Excell. The XML file above only needs attributes in the not deepest tags. (A,B,C ..)
In the real XML every tag has attributes. Not only the <element> ones.

Unfortunately the code fails if I add attributes to the outer tags. It's a nice script, because in contrary to every script i've seen so far, is this one without words that are in the XML. No A, B, C, D, ... element, type, ... Thanks to my imagination and the help of perlmonks

How does one solve this in a good way? Some kind of check weather it has nested elements or it is parsing an attribute...

Show me the actual XML and tell me how do you want to store it in the sheet. If you do not want the attributes from the other tags to get in the way you may use XML::Rules instead and instruct it to skip them. But to tell the truth your boasting about no "words that are in the XML" doesn't make much sense to me.

Jenda


Support Denmark! Defend the free world!

<root>
  <e a="attribute value">element value</e>
</root>
[download]

<root a="attribute value">
  <e>element value</e>
</root>
[download]