i am currently using xml::simple to parse xml data and encountered the following problem:

when i send the xml to the parser it works fine as long as there are no special character in the xml data. 
sample xml attempting to be parsed:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<TRANSACTION>
    <FIELDS>
        <FIELD KEY="user">name</FIELD>
        <FIELD KEY="password">pass&word</FIELD>
        <FIELD KEY="operation_type">do_what</FIELD>
     </FIELDS>
</TRANSACTION>

[download]
i call XMLin on the xml and it generates this error: not well-formed at line 1, column 124, byte 124 at Parsing Script line 168

this correspondes to the &
Right now i am going to escape all the reserved characters in the xml string then send it to XMLin then loop through the resulting keys and unescape the escaped characters to avoid this problem. What i am looking for though is a cleaner alternative to this. Thanks in advance.

In reply to parsing reserved chars with xml::simple by bear0053

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.