XML::Simple parsing xml

geek.shrek · #1 (**permalink**) August 13th, 2009, 01:24 PM

Hi,

First, I'm sorry if this is not the right forum.

I'm trying to parse XML file with XML::Simple in perl.

Here's my input

Code:

<Library>
     <book>
            <id>1</id>
            <name>ABC</name>
     </book>
     <book>
            <id>2</id>
            <name>ABC123</name>
     </book>
     <book>
            <id>3</id>
            <name>ABCDEF</name>
     </book>
</Library>

I would like to get the name of id '1'.

Code:

my $LibList = XMLin('library.xml', forcearray=>1, keyattr => ['id']);

my $name = $LibList->{'1'}->{name};
print "Customer id " . $name . "\n";

It doesn't return anything.

Can someone tell me what did I do wrong?

Thanks,

Leigh · #2 (**permalink**) August 19th, 2009, 10:32 PM

Data::Dumper is your friend here.
I have modified your code slightly to include some diagnostics:

Code:

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
my $LibList = XMLin('.\\library.xml', forcearray=>1, keyattr => ['id']);
print Dumper($LibList);
my $name = $LibList->{'1'}->{name};
print "Customer id " . $name . "\n";

And the structure of your $LibList appears to be:

Code:

$VAR1 = {
          'book' => {
                      'ARRAY(0x238870c)' => {
                                              'name' => [
                                                          'ABCDEF'
                                                        ]
                                            },
                      'ARRAY(0x238864c)' => {
                                              'name' => [
                                                          'ABC'
                                                        ]
                                            },
                      'ARRAY(0x23886ac)' => {
                                              'name' => [
                                                          'ABC123'
                                                        ]
                                            }
                    }
        };

I would suggest removing the 'forcearray' paramater, so that your data ends up looking like this:

Code:

$VAR1 = {
          'book' => {
                      '1' => {
                               'name' => 'ABC'
                             },
                      '2' => {
                               'name' => 'ABC123'
                             },
                      '3' => {
                               'name' => 'ABCDEF'
                             }
                    }
        };

And then your code becomes:

Code:

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
my $LibList = XMLin('.\\library.xml',  keyattr => ['id']);
print Dumper($LibList);
my $name=$LibList->{'book'}->{'1'}->{'name'};
print "Customer id " . $name . "\n";

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