foreach my $file (@files){ # set up the XML parser: my $twig= XML::Twig->new( twig_handlers => { topicref => topicref_processing($file), xref => topicref_processing($file) }, ); $twig->parsefile($file); $twig->purge; } sub topicref_processing { my ($file) = @_; return sub { my($twig, $topicref) = @_; my($atts) = $topicref->atts(); if($$atts{'keyref'}){ ### associate this keyref with $file } } }