Your XML appears to be incomplete, hence unparseable by any decent XML parser.

The code below uses a few regexes operation over the entire string. Note this will only work if your XML is spread across several lines as shown in the snippet you provided.

use strict;

# Load up your XML
# This example ignores the obviously mangled <?xml ?> line at the top

my $xml = qq(
<GeocodeResponse>
    <status>OK</status>
    <result>
        <type>street_address</type>
        <formatted_address>1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy</formatted_address>
        <address_component>
            <long_name>1600</long_name>
            <short_name>1600</short_name>
            <type>street_number</type>
            </address_component>
);

# Before
print "Before the transformation: \n";
print "$xml\n";

# Regexes to re-write the text

# replace all closing tags, which must run to the end of the line
$xml =~ s[</.+$][",]mg;
# rewrite opening tags in as hash keys - first part
$xml =~ s[<]["]mg;
# concluding part of rewriting opening tags
$xml =~ s[>][" => "]mg;
# handle elements that contain non-text elements
$xml =~ s[=> "$][=> {]mg;
# the final closing tag is surplus, remove it
$xml =~ s[^\s+",\s+$][]mg;

# find out how many opening braces are in the string
my $count = split /{/, $xml;
# close all the hashes
$xml .= " } " x $count;

# complete the transformation with the var declaration and the top-lev
+el opening brace
my $var = "\$mytable = { " . $xml;

# After
print "After the transformation: \n";
print "$var\n";

# define the lexical that our transformed text will be eval'ed into
my $mytable;
eval $var;

# choke if an error occurs in the eval
die "ERROR: ", $@, "\n" if $@;

# load Data::Dumper to examine the resulting data structure
use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper);

# the whole hash of hashes (and plain text values)
print "\nThe whole object:\n";
print Dumper $mytable;

# an example of a nested object
print "\nThe Geocode -> result -> address_component object:\n";
print Dumper $$mytable{"GeocodeResponse"}{"result"}{"address_component
+"};
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