No one but you would bother to wrap it up in all that unnecessary verbiage.

PREFERRED_PARSER ensures XML::Parser is used. It's *by far* the fastest backend for XML::Simple.

And given this is being read back from a website, will it make a Gnat's cock of difference?

Seriously? You're complaining that I gave a faster alternative? Had it come of at the cost of code readability or extra work, that would have been worth pointing out.

The difference is significant where I use it (and yes, we pull the response from the web).