Question

I’m creating an XML file using Perl and XML::Simple module. I successfully create the XML file, but the problem is I am having <opt> </opt> tag for each my tags. I am looking for any option which we can aviod the <opt> </opt> tag. I can’t do the post-processing to remove the tag. because the file size is huge.

Example :

<opt>
  <person firstname="Joe" lastname="Smith">
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
  </person>
  <person firstname="Bob" lastname="Smith">
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
  </person>
</opt>

and I am looking for (without <opt> tag):

  <person firstname="Joe" lastname="Smith">
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
  </person>
  <person firstname="Bob" lastname="Smith">
    <email>[e-mail]</email>
  </person>

Answer 1

The tag is the root element of the XML generated from the user-supplied data-structure.
From the XML::Simple documentation –

RootName => ‘string’ # out – handy

By default, when XMLout() generates
XML, the root element will be named
‘opt’. This option allows you to
specify an alternative name.

Specifying either undef or the empty
string for the RootName option will
produce XML with no root elements. In
most cases the resulting XML fragment
will not be ‘well formed’ and
therefore could not be read back in by
XMLin(). Nevertheless, the option has
been found to be useful in certain
circumstances.

To set the root element to blank just pass RootName as ‘undef’ to XMLout, for eg.

use XML::Simple;

my $xml = XMLout($hashref, RootName => undef);