Re: XML::Simple - Handling inconsistency

[Anonymous Monk]

Is there any way to make it give the similar structure?

use XML::Rules , just give xml2XMLRules the most complex detailed xml file you have, and you'll get rules/data like these

#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict; use warnings;
use Data::Dump;
use XML::Rules;
my $ta = XML::Rules->new(
    qw/ stripspaces 8 /,
    rules => 
    {
      'literal' => 'as is',
      'binding' => 'as array no content',
      'uri' => 'content',
      'results' => 'no content'
    }
);
my @xml = (
q{<results>
 <binding name="image_url">
  <uri>Football.png</uri>
 </binding>
 <binding name="description">
  <literal xml:lang="en">Second article.</literal>
 </binding>
</results>
},
q{<results>
    <binding name="description">
      <literal xml:lang="en">First article. </literal>
    </binding>
  </results>
}
);

dd( my$ref = $ta->parsefile( \$_ )) for @xml;

__END__
{
  results => {
    binding => [
      { name => "image_url", uri => "Football.png" },
      {
        literal => { "_content" => "Second article.", "xml:lang" => "e
+n" },
        name => "description",
      },
    ],
  },
}
{
  results => {
    binding => [
      {
        literal => { "_content" => "First article.", "xml:lang" => "en
+" },
        name => "description",
      },
    ],
  },
}

Sure, you could get there with XML::Simple, but I don't bother anymore

Data::Diver for navigation :)

[Jenda]

It's possible and advised to give xml2XMLRules not one but several xml files. That way you are more likely to catch all optional tag attributes and repeatable tags. If you have a DTD it's better to use dtd2XMLRules.

<note>xml2XMLRules and dtd2XMLRules are scripts installed with the XML::Rules module. All they do is that they call the XML::Rules::inferRulesFromExample() and XML::Rules::inferRulesFromDTD() subroutines and print the inferred rules. The inferred rules instruct XML::Rules to build a minimal consistent data structure out of your XML (only tags that may be repeated are turned to arrays, only tags that may have attributes are turned to hashes etc.).</note>

There's a short writeup on this in Simpler than XML::Simple.