Err... did you follow the link I gave? The part entitled "Getting all the character data" describes buffering. Note that if you don't have to deal with mixed content, then you don't need to process characters within the Start handler.

BTW, if you have just started development, I would second Jenda's advice and use (his) XML::Rules or (my!) XML::Twig, or if libxml2 is available, XML::LibXML, even though neither of us wrote it ;--)