If you actually ran the code you posted, you would know what was wrong.

syntax error at ./parse.pl line 13, near ") #" You lost the semicolon. It should be: print Dumper($config); # this prints out parsed xml

Once that's fixed you'll encounter two more errors: Bareword "DATE" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at ./parse.pl line 13. Bareword "NOW" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at ./parse.pl line 13.

Quote DATE-NOW: print $config->{DATA1}->{DATA2}->{'DATE-NOW'}, ".\n";

Now you'll see there are problems with the XML.. End tag mismatch (DATA1 != TIME) [Ln: 10, Col: 9] I'm assuming you typed it instead of using copy/paste. Here's the corrected XML:

<DATA>
  <DATA1>
    <TIME>2012-08-04T20:15:04.506-04:00</TIME>
    <DATA2>
      <DATE-NOW>2000-10-19</DATE-NOW>
      <ID>A95</ID>
      <STATUS>A</STATUS>
      <TIME/>
    </DATA2>
  </DATA1>
</DATA>
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Here's the code with the above corrections made:

use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Simple; # qw(:strict);
use Data::Dumper;

my $simple = XML::Simple->new();
my $config = $simple->XMLin('parse3.xml');

print Dumper($config); # this prints out parsed xml

print $config->{DATA1}->{DATA2}->{'DATE-NOW'}, ".\n";
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