Perl parsing Xml

Question

I am trying to parse some values from a XML string that I have imported through SOAP:Lite. I am not proficient in perl and I couldn't solve this by googling nor by reading related issues here.

The XML I am trying to parse is this:

<COMPUTER>
  <ACCOUNTINFO>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_12"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_24"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="TAG">Arias 4431</ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_23"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_16"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_11"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_6"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_22"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_20"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_21"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_17"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_3">Vigilancia</ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_14"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_9"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_8"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_19"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_10"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_28"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_26"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_15"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_5"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_27"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_7"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_25"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_13"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_18"></ENTRY>
    <ENTRY Name="fields_4">Vigilancia</ENTRY>
  </ACCOUNTINFO>
  <DICO_SOFT>
    <WORD>Freeware</WORD>
    <WORD>AXIS Video</WORD>
    <WORD>Java</WORD>
    <WORD>Drivers & OEM software</WORD>
    <WORD>Actualizaciones de Microsoft</WORD>
    <WORD>MS Operating Systems</WORD>
  </DICO_SOFT>
  <HARDWARE>
    <CHECKSUM>131071</CHECKSUM>
    <DEFAULTGATEWAY></DEFAULTGATEWAY>
    <DESCRIPTION></DESCRIPTION>
    <DNS></DNS>
    <FIDELITY>9214</FIDELITY>
    <ID>453</ID>
    <IPADDR>10.30.8.214</IPADDR>
    <IPSRC>10.30.8.214</IPSRC>
    <LASTCOME>2013-12-27 12:47:42</LASTCOME>
    <LASTDATE>2013-12-27 12:47:42</LASTDATE>
    <MEMORY>2048</MEMORY>
    <NAME>EC214001</NAME>
    <OSCOMMENTS>Service Pack 1</OSCOMMENTS>
    <OSNAME>Microsoft Windows 7 Professional</OSNAME>
    <OSVERSION>6.1.7601</OSVERSION>
    <PROCESSORN>1</PROCESSORN>
    <PROCESSORS>2399</PROCESSORS>
    <PROCESSORT>Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40GHz [2 core(s) x64]</PROCESSORT>
    <QUALITY>0.0716</QUALITY>
    <SSTATE>0</SSTATE>
    <SWAP>3868</SWAP>
    <TYPE>0</TYPE>
    <USERAGENT>OCS-NG_WINDOWS_AGENT_v2.0.5.0</USERAGENT>
    <USERDOMAIN></USERDOMAIN>
    <USERID>vigilancia</USERID>
    <WINCOMPANY></WINCOMPANY>
    <WINOWNER>vigilancia</WINOWNER>
    <WINPRODID>55041-033-4366171-86806</WINPRODID>
    <WINPRODKEY>BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB</WINPRODKEY>
    <WORKGROUP>MASSONE</WORKGROUP>
  </HARDWARE>
</COMPUTER>

I need to get several values from this for manipulation. For example, ENTRY Name="fields_3, ID, IPADDR and NAME.

I have tried with several modules, such as XML::Simple, XML:Parser etc. The data is contained in a string $refx.

I have tried (between other things):

use XML::Simple;
my $newid = XMLin($refx);
$tes = $newid{'ID'};
print $tes;

But it does not work.

Thanks in advance

"It does not work" is not a good description for your problem. Do you get errors, an unexpected result or no output at all? Try to dump $newid with Data::Dumper. Your ID-element could be on a deeper level of the hashref. Also ALWAYS enable strictures and warnings in your scripts (use strict; use warnings;). — Demnogonis
– Demnogonis, Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 17:21

Birei · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-27 17:24:45Z

4

Your xml is not well-formed because of this element:

<WORD>Drivers & OEM software</WORD>

The ampersand must be escaped.

Fixed that. You can extract the information with the XML::Twig module and its twig_roots handler that uses xpath expressions to select those nodes:

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Twig;

XML::Twig->new(
    'twig_roots' => {
        '/COMPUTER/ACCOUNTINFO/ENTRY[@Name="fields_3"]' => sub { 
            printf qq|%s\n|, $_->text_only 
        },
        '/COMPUTER/HARDWARE' => sub {
            for my $t ( grep { $_->tag =~ m/^(?:ID|IPADDR|NAME)$/ } $_->children ) { 
                printf qq|%s\n|, $t->text_only;
            }   
        },  
    },  
)->parsefile( shift );

You can run it like:

perl script.pl xmlfile

That yields:

Vigilancia
453
10.30.8.214
EC214001

answered Dec 27, 2013 at 17:24

Birei

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3 Comments

Bruno9779 Over a year ago

This looks good, but it does not work. I get the following error: you seem to have used the parse method on a filename (*XML::Parser::FILE), you probably want parsefile instead at ./parser.pl line 18. at ./parser.pl line 18

Birei Over a year ago

@Bruno9779: Are you using the code as I wrote it or are you adding new stuff by yourself? I've been looking into the source code of the module and that error comes from the parse() method, not parsefile().

Bruno9779 Over a year ago

I used it just like you pasted it. I got things working in a different (ugly) way, thanks

quicoju · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-27 17:24:58Z

0

You can try using Data::Dumper to see the data structure created after your XML file, use the following code:

use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $ref = XMLin("t.xml");
print Dumper($ref);

$ref will hold a reference to the data structure that you want to access. For more information about using XML::Simple check the this link: https://metacpan.org/pod/XML::Simple it has examples and explains in detail this module.

answered Dec 27, 2013 at 17:24

quicoju

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