XML::Node Version 0.06

Here is a quick but complete example to show you how XML::Node promise
to keep your XML processing scripts short and clear.
----------  orders.xml  ----------------------------------------------
<Orders>
  <Order>
    <Item>A Book</Item>
    <Quantity>1</Quantity>
    <TagsThatIDontCare>Something</TagsThatIDontCare>
   </Order>
   <TagsThatIDontCare>Blah Blah</TagsThatIDontCare>
</Orders>

----------  parse-orders.pl ------------------------------------------
use XML::Node;

my $item = "";
my $quantity = "";

$p = XML::Node->new();

$p->register(">Orders>Order>Item","char" => \$item);
$p->register(">Orders>Order>Quantity","char" => \$quantity);
$p->register(">Orders>Order","end" => \&handle_order_end);

print "Processing file [orders.xml]...\n";
$p->parse("orders.xml");

sub handle_order_end
{
    print "Found order -- Item: [$item] Quantity: [$quantity]\n";
    $item = "";
    $quantity = "";
}

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c)  1999 Chang  Liu 
All rights  reserved.  

This program is  free software; you can redistribute  it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.

This is  a Perl  extension interface to  XML::Parser.  It  requires at
least version 5.004 of perl.  The documentation for this extension can
be  found in  pod  format in  the file Node.pm. The 'perldoc' program,
provided  with  the  perl  distribution,  can be  used  to  view  this
documentation.

The  purpose  of   this  module  is  to  simplify   interface  of  XML
parser. Instead of worrying about "start", "end", and "char" callbacks
of every single XML node, you can  simply say that you only want to be
notified  when  a  path,  such  as ">TestCase>Name",  is  found.  Path
">TestCase>Name" corresponds to XML nodes:
  <TestCase>
    ...
    <Name>Something</Name>
    ...
  </TestCase>

Using XML::Node, you can easily ignore the parts of XML files that you
are not interested  in.  Another feature of XML::Node  is that you can
register a variable instead  of a callback function. The corresponding
string  found in a  XML file  will be  automatically appended  to your
variable. This  way, you don't have  to write a  callback function for
this type of simple handling. Here's an example:

  my $testcase_name = "";
  register(">TestCase>Name","char" => \$testcase_name);


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To  install this  module, cd  to  the directory  that contains  this
README file and type the following:

	perl Makefile.PL

Alternatively, if  you plan to install XML::Node  somewhere other than
your  system's perl library  directory.  You  can type  something like
this:

	perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/me/perl INSTALLDIRS=perl

Then to build you run make.

	make

You can then test the module by typing:

	make test

There are some sample utilities in the samples directory along with an
xml form  of the XML  specification to test  them on. You may  need to
change  the  '#!' line  at  the  top of  these  utilities  to what  is
appropriate for your system. If  you're going to play around with them
prior to installing  the module, you would need to  add the blib paths
to your perl  search path, like this (assuming  your current directory
is samples):

    perl -I../blib/lib -I../blib/arch test.pl

or set your PERLLIB environment variable.

If you have write access to the installation directories, you may then
install by typing:

    make install

After this, you  may use "man XML::Node" to view the  man page of this
module.

  --Chang Liu (liu@ics.uci.edu)