need help with xml parser

nepzraaz has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I want to read from a xml file, the file looks like this:

$data = $xml->XMLin("data.xml");
# access XML data
print "$data->{name} is $data->{age} years old.
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But the problem is that the attribute "name" has to be stored in a variable. So I have to write the second line like this:

$name=$data->{name}; #reads the content of name 
print "$data->{$name} is $data->{age} years old.#goes to the value/att
+ribute                       #pointed by $name
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which is not working properly. I am using xml::simple to parse this file. Thanks for your suggestions.

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Re: need help with xml parser by sauoq (Abbot) on May 22, 2012 at 17:01 UTC
It's impossible to debug your problem from the info given. You should double check the contents of `$name`. It is fine to do what you say you are doing, as this will show: `$ perl -le '$h = {foo => "bar"}; $k = "foo"; print "$h->{$k}";' bar` [download] `-sauoq "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: need help with xml parser by Neighbour (Friar) on May 23, 2012 at 08:24 UTC
If the name is in `$data->{name}` then your 2nd bit of code starts off right (`$name = $data->{name}`) but the print-command afterwards isn't. Try `print "$name is $data->{age} years old.\n"` Suppose `$data->{name}` contains the name 'Jos'. When you're storing that in `$name`, the print-statement tries to access `$data->{Jos}` which is very unlikely to exist in your XML-data. So your code probably doesn't print a name at all.	[reply] [d/l] [select]