Hi wrboyce.

Storing your DVD information in an XML file would be perfectly fine but if you were / are considering another avenue of exploration, I would suggest a hash of hashes ( HoH ).

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

%DVDs = (
    
   'Reservoir Dogs: Special Edition' => {
        
         'EAN' => '060049145457',
         'director'=> 'Quentin Tarantino',
          'year' => '1992',
          'region' => 2,
          'encoding' => 'PAL',
          'aspect ' => '16:9',
          'anamorphic' => 0,
          'widescreen' => 1,
          'audio' => 'Dolby Digital 5.1',
          'length' => 94,
          'cert' => 18,
          'rating' => 5,
  },
    
   'C programmers: A documentary' => {
        
         'EAN' => '060049189573',
         'director'=> 'Ken Thompson',
          'year' => '1996',
          'region' => 2,
          'encoding' => 'PAL',
          'aspect ' => '18:2',
          'anamorphic' => 1,
          'widescreen' => 1,
          'audio' => 'Dolby Digital 5.1',
          'length' => 122,
          'cert' => 16,
          'rating' => 4,
  },

  'The History of Pascal' => {
        
         'EAN' => '060054789573',
         'director'=> 'Niklaus Wirth',
          'year' => '1996',
          'region' => 2,
          'encoding' => 'PAL',
          'aspect ' => '16:2',
          'anamorphic' => 1,
          'widescreen' => 1,
          'audio' => 'Dolby Digital 5.1',
          'length' => 175,
          'cert' => 16,
          'rating' => 4,
  },
);
[download]

Since perl permits 'autovivication', creating new key / value pairs is exceptionally easy. Should my idea of using a HoH not appeal to you, I don't see where using your current solution could be deemed a hindrance. If your project required storing a large quantity of data, you might consider using an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) such as PostgreSQL or MySQL (either of which has distinct advantages and disadvantages). I don't have any experience using postgresql (yet) but I can recommend a good book for learning MySQL:

• Title: MySQL: The Complete Reference
• Author: Vikram Vaswani
• Publisher: Osborne/McGraw Hill
• ISBN: 0-07-222477-0
• Retail Price: $39.99

as well as a useful site for related tutorials:

Hope this helps,
~Katie