'banana' => [
           {
             'value' => '1231210',
             'name' => 'date'
           },
         ]
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I would have thought that it would have returned something like.

That's exactly what it returns without KeyAttr.

That worked!! Not sure why

You're not surprised that KeyAttr changes

'apple' => [
    { name => 'date', value => '1231210' },
    { name => 'time', value => '235959'  },
],
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into

'apple' => [
    date => { value => '1231210' },
    time => { value => '235959'  },
],
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so I don't see why you're surprised that it transforms

'banana' => [
    { name => 'date', value => '1231210' },
],
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into

'banana' => [
    date => { value => '1231210' },
],
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It didn't turn apple into an array with sqr brackets. It returned a hash. Exactly what I wanted. A hash all the time for one or two elements. I was surprised to get a hash because I would have expected sqr brackets from ForceArray.

This really seems like odd behavior but I'll take it. It's exactly what I wanted.

Take this updated code for example:

use strict;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $text=<<EOF;
<main>
  <apple name="date" value="1231210"/>
  <apple name="time" value="235959"/>
  <cookies name="date" value="1231210"/>
  <cookies name="time" value="235959"/>
  <banana name="date" value="1231210"/>
  <butter name="date" value="1231210"/>
  <orange>one</orange>
  <milk>one</milk>
  <grape>one</grape>
  <grape>two</grape>
</main>
EOF
my $p1 = new XML::Simple();
my $tree;
my $config = eval {
   $tree= $p1->XMLin($text,
              ,ForceArray => ['banana','apple','orange']  # bingo!!!
              )
};
die("$@\n Ending") if ($@);

print "\$tree " . Dumper(\$tree) . "\n";

exit 0;
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Unlike Milk, when I put orange into the ForceArray I get sqr brackets. Orange doesn't have an attribute but Banana does. Cookies goes right to a hash without doing anything because there are two of them.

- x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x -
$tree $VAR1 = \{
            'cookies' => {
                         'time' => {
                                   'value' => '235959'
                                 },
                         'date' => {
                                   'value' => '1231210'
                                 }
                       },
            'banana' => {
                        'date' => {
                                  'value' => '1231210'
                                }
                      },
            'apple' => {
                       'time' => {
                                 'value' => '235959'
                               },
                       'date' => {
                                 'value' => '1231210'
                               }
                     },
            'orange' => [
                        'one'
                      ],
            'butter' => {
                        'value' => '1231210',
                        'name' => 'date'
                      },
            'grape' => [
                       'one',
                       'two'
                     ],
            'milk' => 'one'
          };


- x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x -
[download]

Once again. Thanks for the tip. I wouldn't have attempted that.

For your input, I think I'd rather have this output:

$VAR1 = {
          'banana' => {
                      'date' => '1231210'
                    },
          'apple' => {
                     'time' => '235959',
                     'date' => '1231210'
                   }
        };
[download]

And I can get that with XML::Rules:

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Rules;
use Data::Dumper;

my @rules = (
   _default => sub { "%".$_[0] => {$_[1]->{name} => $_[1]->{value}}},
   main => 'pass no content',
);

my $text=<<EOF;
<main>
  <apple name="date" value="1231210"/>
  <apple name="time" value="235959"/>
  <banana name="date" value="1231210"/>
</main>
EOF

my $p = XML::Rules->new(
  rules => \@rules,
);
my $x = $p->parse($text);
print Dumper $x;
[download]