I had same problem i fixed it by creating subclasses of XML::Parser

package MyParser;

use strict;
use base qw(XML::Parser);

sub my_start {
   my ($self, $element, %attributes) = @_;
   $self->{_local_variable} = $something
}
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make sure the instance variables names do not collide with XML::Parser instance variables, I'd suggest you to use a prefix for your variables like __ or anything else