Any ideas about why XML::Parser would do this?

XML::Parser wouldn't ignore anything unless instructed, see XML::Parser Tutorial

XML::Parser shouldn't be ignoring the Company A&; I think what you'll find is that it treats the title as three pieces of character data:

1. Company A
2. &
3. B Information

And it will treat these as three separate parse events. Quick demonstration:

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Parser;

my $in_title;
my $parser = XML::Parser->new(
    Handlers => {
        Start => sub { $in_title++ if $_[1] eq 'Title' },
        End   => sub { $in_title-- if $_[1] eq 'Title' },
        Char  => sub { say "CHAR: $_[1]" if $in_title },
    },
);

$parser->parse(<<'XML');
<Document>
    <Title>Company A&amp;B Information</Title>
    <Abstract>Foo</Abstract>
</Document>
XML
[download]

XML::Parser is very bare-bones, and sees the job of translating those parse events into a useful data structure as being very much your job.

Personally I prefer DOM-based XML parsers, such as XML::LibXML which parse the entire file into a tree and allow you to manipulate and navigate that tree using the same DOM interface which web browsers expose to Javascript.

You are right, the parser is indeed treating the title as:


1. Company A
2. &
3. B Information
[download]

Therefore, does it mean that our code needs to have the ability to put all these three pieces together and save as one single title?

Many thanks for your help!

I'm guessing that right now the code (you haven't posted any, so the best I can do is guess!) in the Char handler is saving a reference to the last bit of character data, and then when the End handler sees the end of the Title element, it does something with that. Maybe something like this:

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Parser;

my ($got_title, $in_title);
my $parser = XML::Parser->new(
    Handlers => {
        Start => sub { $in_title++ if $_[1] eq 'Title' },
        End   => sub { $in_title--, say "GOT TITLE: $got_title" if $_[
+1] eq 'Title' },
        Char  => sub { $got_title = $_[1] if $in_title },
    },
);

$parser->parse(<<'XML');
<Document>
    <Title>Company A&amp;B Information</Title>
    <Abstract>Foo</Abstract>
    <Title>Company X&amp;Y Information</Title>
    <Abstract>Bar</Abstract>
</Document>
XML
[download]

Instead you want the Char handler to accumulate the pieces of character data using either string appending, or pushing onto an array/arrayref, then use the Start and End handlers to signal when to start and end accumulating character data. For example:

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Parser;

my (@got_title, $in_title);
my $parser = XML::Parser->new(
    Handlers => {
        Start => sub { $in_title++, @got_title = () if $_[1] eq 'Title
+' },
        End   => sub { $in_title--, say "GOT TITLE: @got_title" if $_[
+1] eq 'Title';  },
        Char  => sub { push @got_title, $_[1] if $in_title },
    },
);

$parser->parse(<<'XML');
<Document>
    <Title>Company A&amp;B Information</Title>
    <Abstract>Foo</Abstract>
    <Title>Company X&amp;Y Information</Title>
    <Abstract>Bar</Abstract>
</Document>
XML
[download]

package Cow { use Moo; has name => (is => 'lazy', default => sub { 'Mooington' }) } say Cow->new->name

You probably should be using some higher level parser than XML::Parser. Maybe XML::Rules or XML::Twig. Or possibly XML::Simple or XML::LibXML.