Don't use it directly unless you really must.

use XML::Rules;
my $parser = XML::Rules->new(stripspaces => 7,
  rules => {
    _default => 'content',
    root => 'pass'
  }
);

my $my_hash = $parser->parse(\*DATA);
use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper($my_hash);
__DATA__
<root>
<tag1>My Tag1</tag1>
<tag2>My Tag2</tag2>
<tag3>My Tag3</tag3>
</root>
[download]