Question

I want to parse an XML file, consisting, among others:

<xml>
<t>
    <name>object</name>
    <t1 name="a">A</t1>
    <t1 name="b">B</t1>
    <t2 name="c">C</t2>
</t>
...
</xml>

So, when I parse it with XML::Simple:

my $xml = new XML::Simple;
my $data = $xml->XMLin("data.xml");

I get that while $data->{t}->{object}->{t1}->{a}->{content} is expectedly “A”, I cannot get the “C” with $data->{t}->{object}->{t2}->{c}->{content}, because there is only one instance of “t2”.

In my script, I don’t want to have any differences between those two cases – I wish to get “C” exactly in the same way I got “A”.

How can that be done? I tried searching for the answer, but I only got to setting ForceArray to 1, but that didn’t solve the problem.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Try to define in exact the forcearray, like this:

my $data = $xml->XMLin("data.xml", forcearray=>['t2']);

I believe this should work. If you are afraid that there might be instances of t which have only one instance of t1 as well, change it to ['t1', 't2'].