I want to preface this by saying that I do not have a computer science degree, so I apologize if this question is boneheaded.

I am trying to build a very simple XML DTD parser in Perl. What I can't figure out, though, is if an element in the DTD is the parent element of another in that DTD (and so on and so forth) how I can follow them down for an indeterminate amount of levels.

For example. Lets say there is an element called < Particle > that was the parent of two elements called < Proton > and < Neutron > -- and they in turn were parents for elements < Top > , < Bottom > , < Charm > , and < Beauty > respectively. How can I create a hash with those elements as keys without knowing how many levels down the relationship goes?

I really hope this is making sense, because I feel that it shouldn't be that difficult. I could certainly figure it out if I knew that they were only going to go say 10 levels down, or a hundred, or some finite number, but I won't necessarily have that information.

Any guidance from the kinda and gentle monks here will be greatly appreciated.

jupe

Edit kudra, 2002-05-01 Changed title

---

---

• 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.