use XML::Rules;

my @rules = (
  list => sub {
    my $dict = $_[1]{dict};
    for my $d (@$dict) {
      print "$d->{key}: $d->{value}\n";
    }
    return;
  },
  dict => [
    '/root' => sub {
      my $d = $_[1];
      print "$d->{key}: $d->{value}\n" if $d->{key} eq 'status';
      return;
    },
    'no content array',
  ],

  value => 'content',
);

my $xr = XML::Rules->new( rules => \@rules );
$xr->parse($xml);
[download]

my @rules = (
  "^dict" => sub {
    return $_[1]{key} =~ /^(?:status|subnet|gateway|netmask|data)$/;
  },
  dict => sub {
    my $d = $_[1];
    return if $d->{key} eq 'data';
    print "$d->{key}: $d->{value}\n";
  },
  value => 'content',
);
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open 1.xml ;
echo Status: /root/dict[@key="status"]/value ;
for /root/dict[@key="data"]/list/dict[@key="subnet" or @key="netmask" 
+or @key="gateway"]
    echo :s @key ': ' (value) ;
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Hello.

With XML::Twig, maybe something like this. Twig has nice tutorial.

use strict;use warnings;
use XML::Twig;

my $t=XML::Twig->new(
    twig_roots => {
        '/root/dict[@key="data"]/list/dict' =>  sub {
            my ($twig,$elt)=@_;
            printf "%s = %s\n", $elt->att("key"), $elt->first_child_te
+xt;
        },
    },
)->parsefile('your.xml');
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Looks like my login timed out whilst posting original. Thanks for responses. As I say I'm very new to Perl, ie. a couple of days, and not sure I fully understand the first response and cannot get XML::Twig to compile.

Writing Makefile for XML::Twig
malformed JSON string, neither array, object, number, string or atom, 
+at character offset 0 (before "(end of string)") at Makefile.PL line 
+147
[download]

Therefore ideally a solution with XML::Simple or XML::LibXML would be preferable if possible. I think I'm close with the existing code just maybe not quite understanding something.

This does the trick...

sub smart_match
{
  my ($target, $param) = @_;
  
  if (ref $param eq 'Regexp')
    { return ($target =~ qr/$param/) }
  
  if (ref $param eq 'ARRAY')
    { return grep { smart_match($target, $_) } @$param }
  
  return ($target eq $param);
}

# ...
next unless smart_match($key, [qw/subnet gateway cidr netmask/]);
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perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'

tobyink thank you very much. There's a couple of things I'll need to study to ensure I've fully understood everything but I think I'm pretty much there with you assistance. Much appreciate all your input.

This I like though due to the fixed stack we have to work with I cannot use Perl later than 5.8.8 and also cannot use LibXML 1.70. I appreciate that is a whole topic of conversation in itself but those are the boundaries. I do appreciate the help though as this is very helpful in getting me going with Perl.

However, I've done a little bit with the code to make it work with 5.8.8 and I'm almost there but currently only outputting subnet and I need gateway, cidr and netmask too.

...
my $ua          = LWP::UserAgent->new();
my $req         = HTTP::Request->new('GET', $url);
my $res         = $ua->request($req);
my $parser      = XML::LibXML->new();

sub smart_match
{
        my ($target, $param) = @_;
        if (ref $param eq 'Regexp')
        {
                return ($target =~ qr/$param/);
        }
        else
        {
                return ($target eq $param);
        }
}

my $xml         = $parser->parse_string( $res->content() );
my @results;

foreach my $dict ($xml->findnodes('//dict'))
{
        my $key = $dict->getAttribute('key');

        #next unless $key eq [qw( 'subnet', 'gateway', 'cidr', 'netmas
+k' ) ];

        next unless smart_match( $key, qw( subnet gateway cidr netmask
+ ) );

        print Dumper($key);

        push @results, {} if $key eq 'subnet';

        my $value = $dict->findvalue('.//value');

        $results[-1]{ $key } = "$value";
}

print Dumper \@results;
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Which outputs:

$VAR1 = 'subnet';
$VAR1 = 'subnet';
$VAR1 = 'subnet';
$VAR1 = 'subnet';
$VAR1 = 'subnet';
$VAR1 = [
          {
            'subnet' => '10.11.14.0'
          },
          {
            'subnet' => '10.11.15.0'
          },
          {
            'subnet' => '10.15.8.0'
          },
          {
            'subnet' => '10.7.17.224'
          },
          {
            'subnet' => '10.11.24.0'
          }
        ];
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Meh... I replied to the wrong node. See Re^2: Struggling with XML.

perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'