XML::Reader 0.49

XML::Reader is a Perl module that provides a simple and easy to use interface for sequentially parsing XML files (so called "pull-mode" parsing) and at the same time keeps track of the complete XML-path.

It was developped as a wrapper on top of XML::Parser or XML::Parsepp (while, at the same time, some basic functions have been copied from XML::TokeParser). all modules, XML::Parser, XML::Parsepp and XML::TokeParser allow pull-mode parsing, but do not keep track of the complete XML-Path. Also, the interfaces to XML::Parser, XML::Parsepp and XML::TokeParser require you to distinguish between start-tags, end-tags and text on seperate lines, which, in my view, complicates the interface (although, XML::Reader allows option {filter => 4, mode => 'pyx'} which emulates start-tags, end-tags and text on separate lines, if that's what you want).

There is also XML::TiePYX, which lets you pull-mode parse XML-Files (see http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/03/15/feature/index.html for an introduction to PYX). But still, with XML::TiePYX you need to account for start-tags, end-tags and text, and it does not provide the full XML-path.

By contrast, XML::Reader translates start-tags, end-tags and text into XPath-like expressions. So you don't need to worry about tags, you just get a path and a value, and that's it. (However, should you wish to operate XML::Reader in a PYX compatible mode, there is option {filter => 4, mode => 'pyx'}, as mentioned above, which allows you to parse XML in that way).

SYNOPSIS

 use XML::Reader;

 my $text = q{< init >n < ?test pi? > t< page node="400" >m < !-- remark -- > r< /page >< /init >};

 my $rdr = XML::Reader->new(\$text);
 while ($rdr->iterate) {
 printf "Path: %-19s, Value: %s\n", $rdr->path, $rdr->value;
 }

This program produces the following output:

 Path: /init , Value: n t
 Path: /init/page/@node , Value: 400
 Path: /init/page , Value: m r
 Path: /init , Value:

You can also wrap the call to XML::Reader->new(...) into an eval {...} to check if it succeeded, as follows:

 my $rdr = eval{ XML::Reader->new('test.xml') }
 or warn "Can't XML::Reader->new() because $@";

 if ($rdr) {
 # ... do something with $rdr ...
 }
 else {
 # ... do some error handling ...
 }


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Requirements:

· Perl