use XML::LibXML;
use XML::Simple;

my $xml_simple = new XML::Simple(
		SuppressEmpty => 1,
		KeyAttr       => "INDEX",
		ForceArray => 1,
		KeepRoot => 1,
	    );
my @nodeblocks;
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc = $parser->parse_string($string);
my @nodes = $doc->findnodes("//ROOT_TAG/*");
foreach my $node(@nodes) {
 my $str = $node->tostring();
 my $str_hash = $xml_simple->XMLin($str);
		    push(@nodeblocks, $str_hash);
}