I find generally that XML::Simple ain't. Try XML::TreeBuilder or XML::Twig instead:
use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::TreeBuilder;
use XML::Twig;
my $xml = do {local $/; <DATA>};
print "Using TreeBuilder:\n";
my $root = XML::TreeBuilder->new ();
$root->parse ($xml);
my @itemNodes = $root->look_down ('_tag', 'item');
my $nodeCount;
for my $nodeIndex (0 .. @itemNodes - 1) {
my @titles = $itemNodes[$nodeIndex]->look_down ('_tag', 'title');
print "Item node " . ($nodeIndex + 1) . "\n";
print " ", $_->as_text (), "\n" for @titles;
}
print "\nUsing Twig\n";
my $t= XML::Twig->new (twig_roots => {item => \&data});
$t->parse ($xml);
sub data {
my ($t, $data) = @_;
++$nodeCount;
print "Item node $nodeCount\n";
my @titles = $data->descendants ('title');
print " ", $_->trimmed_text (), "\n" for @titles;
}
__DATA__
<inbox>
<item>
<title>Foo</title>
<description>Bar</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Baz</title>
<description>Foobar</description>
</item>
</inbox>
Prints:
Using TreeBuilder:
Item node 1
Foo
Item node 2
Baz
Using Twig
Item node 1
Foo
Item node 2
Baz
DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel