#!/usr/bin/perl --
#~ xml-simple-to-xml-rules-1089765.pl
#~ 2014-06-12-23:31:16 by Anonymous Monk
#~ 
#~ 
#~ perltidy -csc -otr -opr -ce -nibc -i=4     
#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict; use warnings;
use XML::Rules;
use XML::Simple qw/ XMLin /;
use Data::Dump qw/ dd /;

my $shortxmlraw = q{<?xml version='1.0'?>
<employees>
    <employee>
        <name>John Doe</name>
        <age>43</age>
        <sex>M</sex>
        <department>Operations</department>
    </employee>
    <employee>
        <name>Jane Doe</name>
        <age>31</age>
        <sex>F</sex>
        <department>Accounts</department>
    </employee>
</employees>};

my $xmlin = XML::Rules->new(
    qw/ stripspaces 8 /,
    rules => ## the result of xml2XMLRules foo.xml foo2.xml ....
    {
      'age,department,name,sex' => 'content',
      'employee' => 'as array no content',
      'employees' => 'no content'
    },
);

dd({ YES => $xmlin->parse( $shortxmlraw ) });
dd({ NO => XMLin( $shortxmlraw ) });
__END__

{
  YES => {
           employees => {
             employee => [
               { age => 43, department => "Operations", name => "John Doe", sex => "M" },
               { age => 31, department => "Accounts", name => "Jane Doe", sex => "F" },
             ],
           },
         },
}
{
  NO => {
          employee => {
            "Jane Doe" => { age => 31, department => "Accounts", sex => "F" },
            "John Doe" => { age => 43, department => "Operations", sex => "M" },
          },
        },
}