Question

I have XML file (output of some application) like this:

<data>
    <call function="get_user_data">
        <output>
            <integer name="my_id" value="-31" />
            <string name="login" value="root" />
            <integer name="ip_list" value="2" />
            <array name="i">
                <item>
                    <ip_address name="user_ip" value="0.0.0.0" />
                    <ip_address name="user_mask" value="0.0.0.0"/>
                </item>
                <item>
                    <ip_address name="user_ip" value="94.230.160.230" />
                    <ip_address name="user_mask" value="255.255.255.0"/>
                </item>
            </array>
            <integer name="modules" value="2" />
            <array name="i">
                <item>
                    <string name="module_name" value="core" />
                </item>
                <item>
                    <string name="module_name" value="devices" />
                </item>
            </array>
            <integer name="addition_modules" value="0"/>
            <array name="i"/>
        </output>
    </call>
</data>

I need to parse it for this perl structure:

$data = {
    my_id => -31,
    login => "root",
    ip_list => [
        {
            user_ip => "0.0.0.0",
            user_mask => "0.0.0.0"
        },
        {
            user_ip => "94.230.160.230",
            user_mask => "255.255.255.0"
        }
    ],
    modules => [
        {
            module_name => "core"
        },
        {
            module_name => "devices"
        }
    ],
    addition_modules => []
}

Help me, plz, to make it!

Answer 1

This is an awful XML format. It’s redundant: why give the number of elements for each array, it’s there, and the hierarchy is not well defined: the name of the array (and, if you must have it, its number of elements) should be an attribute of the array, not an element before it at the same level.

Anyway… your format is so specific that I doubt you can use the usual XML::Simple here, so I pulled out XML::Twig, and I think this will do:

#!/usr/bin/perl 

use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Twig;
use Test::More tests => 1;

my $expected= {
    my_id => -31,
    login => "root",
    ip_list => [
        { user_ip => "0.0.0.0",
          user_mask => "0.0.0.0"
        },
        { user_ip => "94.230.160.230",
          user_mask => "255.255.255.0"
        }
    ],
    modules => [
        { module_name => "core" },
        { module_name => "devices" }
    ],
    addition_modules => []
};

my $data={};

my $t=XML::Twig->new( twig_handlers => { 'integer[@name="my_id"]' => sub { add_field( $data, $_)},
                                         'string[@name="login"]' => sub { add_field( $data, $_)},
                                         array => sub { array( $data, @_); },
                                       },
              )
         ->parse( \*DATA); # replace with parsefile( 'file.xml') to parse a file

is_deeply( $data, $expected, 'one test to rule them all');


sub array
  { my( $data, $t, $array)= @_;
    my $name= $array->prev_sibling( 'integer')->att( 'name');
    $data->{$name}=[];
    foreach my $item ($array->children( 'item'))
      { my $item_data={};
        foreach my $child ($item->children)
          { add_field( $item_data, $child); }
        push @{$data->{$name}}, $item_data;
      }
  }


# get a name/value pair of attributes and add it to a hash, which
# could be the overall $data or an element in an array
sub add_field
  { my( $data, $elt)= @_;
    $data->{$elt->att( 'name')}= $elt->att( 'value');
  }



__DATA__
<data>
    <call function="get_user_data">
        <output>
            <integer name="my_id" value="-31" />
            <string name="login" value="root" />
            <integer name="ip_list" value="2" />
            <array name="i">
                <item>
                    <ip_address name="user_ip" value="0.0.0.0" />
                    <ip_address name="user_mask" value="0.0.0.0"/>
                </item>
                <item>
                    <ip_address name="user_ip" value="94.230.160.230" />
                    <ip_address name="user_mask" value="255.255.255.0"/>
                </item>
            </array>
            <integer name="modules" value="2" />
            <array name="i">
                <item>
                    <string name="module_name" value="core" />
                </item>
                <item>
                    <string name="module_name" value="devices" />
                </item>
            </array>
            <integer name="addition_modules" value="0"/>
            <array name="i"/>
        </output>
    </call>
</data>