#!/usr/bin/perl -- 

use strict;
use warnings;


use XML::Simple;

my $xml =<<'__XML__';
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<table_data>
<row>
<field name="column1">Homer</field>
<field name="column2">Homer Simpson</field>
<field name="column3">Nuclear Systems Operation</field>
</row>
<row>
<field name="column1">Marge</field>
<field name="column2">Marge Simpson</field>
<field name="column3">Homers caretaker</field>
</row>
</table_data>

__XML__

$xml =~ s/^\s+//s;
$xml =~ s/\s+\z//s;

my $rows = XMLin($xml,ForceContent=>1, ForceArray=>1);

print Data::Dumper->new([$rows])->Indent(1)->Dump;use Data::Dumper;

for my $row( @{ $rows->{row} }){
    for my $key( keys %{$row->{field}} ){
        print "$key => ", $row->{field}{$key}{content},"\n";
    }
}
__END__
$VAR1 = {
  'row' => [
    {
      'field' => {
        'column3' => {
          'content' => 'Nuclear Systems Operation'
        },
        'column2' => {
          'content' => 'Homer Simpson'
        },
        'column1' => {
          'content' => 'Homer'
        }
      }
    },
    {
      'field' => {
        'column3' => {
          'content' => 'Homers caretaker'
        },
        'column2' => {
          'content' => 'Marge Simpson'
        },
        'column1' => {
          'content' => 'Marge'
        }
      }
    }
  ]
};
column3 => Nuclear Systems Operation
column2 => Homer Simpson
column1 => Homer
column3 => Homers caretaker
column2 => Marge Simpson
column1 => Marge
[download]

Doh! Apparently I can't wrap my mind around the hash of arrays concept. Thank you anonymous monk!