How to parse multi record XML file ues XML::Simple in Perl

Question

My data.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<catalog>
  <cd country="UK">
    <title>Hide your heart</title>
    <artist>Bonnie Tyler</artist>
    <price>10.0</price>
  </cd>
  <cd country="CHN">
    <title>Greatest Hits</title>
    <artist>Dolly Parton</artist>
    <price>9.99</price>
  </cd>
  <cd country="USA">
    <title>Hello</title>
    <artist>Say Hello</artist>
    <price>0001</price>
  </cd>
</catalog>

my test.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl

   # use module
   use XML::Simple;
   use Data::Dumper;

   # create object
   $xml = new XML::Simple;

   # read XML file
   $data = $xml->XMLin("data.xml");

   # access XML data
   print "$data->{cd}->{country}\n";
   print "$data->{cd}->{artist}\n";
   print "$data->{cd}->{price}\n";
   print "$data->{cd}->{title}\n";

Output:

Not a HASH reference at D:\learning\perl\t1.pl line 16.

Comment: I googled and found the article(handle single xml record). http://www.go4expert.com/forums/showthread.php?t=812 I tested with the article code, it works quite well on my laptop.

Then I created my practice code above to try to access multiple record. but failed. How can I fix it? Thank you.

Answer 1

Always use strict;, always use warnings; Don't quote complex references like you're doing. You're right to use Dumper;, it should have shown you that cd was an array ref - you have to specificity which cd.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

# use module
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

# create object
my $xml = new XML::Simple;

# read XML file
my $data = $xml->XMLin("file.xml");

# access XML data
print $data->{cd}[0]{country};
print $data->{cd}[0]{artist};
print $data->{cd}[0]{price};
print $data->{cd}[0]{title};