What you are looking for is: if ( $node->{node} )

However, is a little recursion OK?

print_nodes($data);

sub print_nodes {
    my $data = shift;

    foreach my $node ( @{ $data->{node} } ) {
        print $node->{name} . ": " . $node->{text} . "\n";
        if ( $node->{node} ) {
            print_nodes($node);
        }
    }
}
[download]

This should work regardless of how deep the nodes go; however, it doesn't indent:

1st node: Text of 1st node
2nd node: Text of 2nd node
subnode A: Text of subnode A
subnode B: Text of subnode B
3rd node: Text of 3rd node
[download]

EDITED TO ADD INDENTATION:

print_nodes( $data, 0 );

sub print_nodes {
    my ( $data, $depth ) = @_;
    my $tab_width = 4;

    foreach my $node ( @{ $data->{node} } ) {
        my $indent = " " x $depth x $tab_width;
        print $indent . $node->{name} . ": " . $node->{text} . "\n";
        if ( $node->{node} ) {
            print_nodes( $node, $depth + 1 );
        }
    }
}
[download]

1st node: Text of 1st node
2nd node: Text of 2nd node
    subnode A: Text of subnode A
    subnode B: Text of subnode B
3rd node: Text of 3rd node
[download]