Re: "Beginner" question on parsing XML file with XML::Simple

Hi Johan

I'm the author of the XML::Simple module and frankly I don't think it's
the best module for the job.  Although I was able to come up with a
solution it was very likely to fail in the face of slight variations in
the XML.

A better bet would be XML::LibXML.  Here's a solution that's not only
shorter than the XML::Simple version, but more robust as well:

  #!/usr/bin/perl -w

  use strict;

  use XML::LibXML;

  my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();

  my $doc  = $parser->parse_file('report.xml');

  my $msg_path = q{/ReportOutput/ReportBody/ReportSection[@name='messages']}
               . q{/ReportSection[@category='message']};

  foreach my $message ($doc->findnodes($msg_path)) {
    my $user = $message->findvalue(q{./String[@name='user']});
    print "User: $user\n";
    my $text = $message->findvalue(q{./String[@name='message']});
    $text =~ s/\s+/ /g;
    print "Text: $text\n";
  }

You might also be interested in the following article I wrote on the
PerlMonks web site which introduces XML::LibXML ...

  http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=490846

Cheers
Grant

On Sun, 2008-12-14 at 23:14 +0100, Johan Landerholm wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I understand there is a lot of very talented people on this mailing list.
> 
> I would consider myself a bad programmer even though I'm been in the 
> Unix industry for 20 years.
> I have just come across a XML parsing problem that I thought perl would 
> be good in solving for me.
> But, I have struggled with the XML::Simple module to get the information 
> from a xml report that I get from a system.
> 
> If someone is willing to help me with this problem, I would be very 
> thankful!
> 
> I have a report that I need to pull a few pieces of data from and do 
> something else with.
> The report looks like this:
> 
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <ReportOutput>
>     <ReportHead>
>         <Report oid="-1y2p0ij32e7uh:-1y2p0ij30wn8z" name="export log" 
> type="systemlog_rpt">
>             <Description>Test report</Description>
>         </Report>
>     </ReportHead>
>     <ReportBody>
>         <ReportSection name="messages" category="messages">
>             <ReportSection name="12/14/08 7:15 AM" category="message">
>                 <String name="user">administrator</String>
>                 <Timestamp name="messageTime" displayvalue="12/14/08 
> 7:15 AM">1229267714000</Timestamp>
>                 <String name="message">Modified Rule 'test rule'.
> 
> Added '/bin'.
> </String>
>                 <String name="level">Information</String>
>                 <String name="category">Rule Change</String>
>             </ReportSection>
>         </ReportSection>
>         <ReportSection name="reportTotals" category="reportTotals">
>             <Integer name="summary.messages">1</Integer>
>             <Integer name="summary.information">1</Integer>
>             <Integer name="summary.error">0</Integer>
>         </ReportSection>
>     </ReportBody>
> </ReportOutput>
> 
> The information that I need is the <String 
> name="user">*administrator*</String> and the <String 
> name="message">*Modified Rule 'test rule'. Added '/bin'.*</String>.
> How is it possible to find this information in a perl script ?
> I have tried to use the examples in the documentation but I can't get it 
> right ?
> 
> Am I using the correct module ?
> Has anyone any suggestions on how to do this ?
> 
> Best regards,
> Johan
> 
> 
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