I think you should look at XML::Smart. Any point in the tree parsed by XML::Smart can be accessed as an array, or as a tree - whichever is convenient for you at that point.

In addition, XML::Smart already has methods for writing out the tree (in the original order), and for parsing the XML (with pluggable parsers), so it would seem you would be able to concentrate on the important stuff (like what to do with the data once you have it parsed).

In reply to Re: Maintaing the insertion order of an N-tier hash by matija
in thread Maintaing the insertion order of an N-tier hash by dwhitney

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