The fact that something is one line is not relevant. Consider this document as a single line-

$the_oxford_english_dictionary =~ s/\r?\n/ /g;

It wouldn't make it any easier to parse. In your case, I'm guessing you're resisting a parser because your XML is invalid (aka, garbage). A parser *is* the way to go and if you provide real sample XML you'll probably get help with it. That said, this might do what you want without a parser- 

my $doc = '<?xml version="1.0"?><root><a:b>one</a:b><a:b>two</a:b></ro
+ot>';
my $last = [ $doc =~ /a:b>([^<]+)/g ]->[-1];
print $last, $/;

[download]

It won't be reliable or flexible though. :|

In reply to Re: How to find the value of the first and last occurence of an XML node? by Your Mother
in thread How to find the value of the first and last occurence of an XML node? by biswanath_c

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.