That's not what the docs say, and that's not what the error message says. (It mentions "Node", not "NodeSet".)

The error message is actually spot on. The OP is trying to call the "exists" method of a node, but nodes don't have an "exists" method. The correct usage is

$tree->exists('path', $node)
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I was looking at <a href="http://search.cpan.org/~msergeant/XML-XPath-1.13/XPath.pm#findnodes%28$path,_$context%29">->findnodes, and there it says that.

But I remember hours of staring at various parts of the documentation, trying to piece together a whole, so there might be other parts that say something else.

I don't get it.. a tree is still basically a node, and vice versa... what sets them apart?

I'm sorry, but I don't get it, but a node is a tree, and vice-versa.. what is the distinction?

Actually, another question.. the doc says that findnodes

"Returns a list of nodes found by $path, optionally in context $context. In scalar context returns an XML::XPath::NodeSet object."

I had taken that to mean that since I am invoking the method inside the braces for a foreach loop

It would return a list of nodes.. Isn't that a list contest? Why would it be a scalar context?

Indeed, it should return the list of nodes in your case. I think I was just barking up the wrong tree, sorry.

thats what i thought too, and tried these changes:

foreach my $node($tree->findnodes('path')->get_nodelist(){
  if ($node->exists('path')){
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and alternatively

my $node_list = $tree->find('path');
foreach my $node($node_list->get_nodelist()){
  if ($node->exists('path')){
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I still get the same error..