If you want to write a short script, check out the XML::Simple module. If you are writing an application take a look at XML::Parser or XML::Twig.

Here is a snippet that may be helpful:

#!/usr/bin/perl.exe -w
use strict;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $ref = XMLin("./data.xml");

print Dumper($ref);
print $ref->{emp}->{name},$/;
print $ref->{emp}->{age},$/;
print $ref->{emp}->{address},$/
[download]

...and just for completeness here is the 'data.xml' file that I used:

<profile>
<emp>
<name>Mahesh</name>
<age>24</age>
<address>New york</address>
<desig>Developer</desig>
</emp>
</profile>
[download]

...and what my results looked like:

$ ./script.pl
$VAR1 = {
          'emp' => {
                     'desig' => 'Developer',
                     'address' => 'New york',
                     'age' => '24',
                     'name' => 'Mahesh'
                   }
        };
Mahesh
24
New york
[download]

--
hiseldl
What time is it? It's Camel Time!