Maybe this could help:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
;
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
use Data::Dumper;
my $xml =q(<?xml version="1.0"?>
<response>
<files>
<file file_url="http://server.domain/file1.exe">
file1.exe
</file>
<file file_url="http://server.domain/file2.zip">
file2.zip
</file>
</files>
</response>
);
my $ref = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(files) ], keyattr => [] );
my %files;
for my $elem(@{$ref->{files}}){
my $filesref = $elem->{file};
$files{$_->{content}} = $_->{file_url} for(@$filesref);
}
print Dumper(\%files);