I need to delete some elements from an XML file, and I'm not sure how to do it intelligently.

I've got an XML file that looks sort of like this:

<opt>
  <node>
    <val>1</val>
  </node>
  <node>
    <val>2</val>
  </node>
  <node>
    <val>3</val>
  </node>
</opt>
[download]

And I want to remove some arbitrary node based on user input. Here's what I've got so far, assuming that I want to remove the node that has the "val" attribute set to 2:

use strict;
use XML::Simple;

my $xref = XMLin("<top><node><val>1</val></node><node><val>2</val></no
+de><node><val>3</val></node></top>");

my $nodenum = 0;
for my $n ( @{$xref->{'node'}} ) {
  if ( $n->{val} == 2 ) {
    splice @{$xref->{'node'}}, $nodenum, 1;
  }
  $nodenum++;
}
[download]

I really don't like using the $nodenum++ to track which element I'm iterating at, but I can't think of a better way.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.