I am writing a program that reads a large GEDCOM XML 6.0 file and pulls out a specific individual based on an Id parameter passed to the script.

I decided to use XML::Twig because it only stores the selected individual's node in memory, instead of storing the entire XML file in memory. Since XML::Twig does not allow all of the XPath functionality as far as w3 is concerned, I started looking into using XML::XPath instead of XML::Twig.

My question is, does XML::XPath keep the entire XML file in memory? or does it work like XML::Twig? or do I just not understand either of them correctly :-) Also, if there are any better suggestions as far as reading XML efficiently, please let me know.

My thanks ahead of time...

Update

So, to make sure I understand this, would I be correct in saying both XML::Twig and XML::XPath each read the entire XML file into memory once, with the difference being that XML::Twig gets rid of it as soon as it gets the node(s) it wants to further process?

Thanks buttroast

In reply to XML::Twig -vs- XML::XPath by buttroast

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