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Hi

After parsing with XML::Simple the variable $xml contains:

<city>
<firm>
<employee>Fred</employee>
<employee>Bill</employee>
<employee>Bob</employee>
</firm>
</city>

I need to know how many employees? I can easily extract each
employeee but I only need the count. Is there an easier way?

Regards
John

On 09/06/2006 05:26 AM, John wrote:
> Hi
>
> After parsing with XML::Simple the variable $xml contains:
>
> <city>
> <firm>
> <employee>Fred</employee>
> <employee>Bill</employee>
> <employee>Bob</employee>
> </firm>
> </city>
>
> I need to know how many employees? I can easily extract each
> employeee but I only need the count. Is there an easier way?
>
> Regards
> John
>
>
>
>

You can probably use the 'ForceArray => 1' option when parsing
the file then count the number of elements in the array.

John <> wrote:


> I need to know how many employees?


That is a different question from the one in your Subject header.

There are 6 employee "tags".

There are 3 employee "elements".

See the XML FAQ:

http://xml.silmaril.ie/authors/makeup/


> I can easily extract each
> employeee but I only need the count. Is there an easier way?


-----------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::Simple;

my $xml = '<city>
<firm>
<employee>Fred</employee>
<employee>Bill</employee>
<employee>Bob</employee>
</firm>
</city>
';

my $ref = XMLin( $xml );

my $count = @{ $ref->{firm}{employee} }; # See "Use Rule 1" in perlreftut.pod

print "there are $count employee elements\n";
-----------------------------------------


--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas

On 2006-09-06 10:26, John <> wrote:
><city>
> <firm>
> <employee>Fred</employee>
> <employee>Bill</employee>
> <employee>Bob</employee>
> </firm>
></city>

That's nice, but if it does it already contained that before parsing,
too. Parsing the above data with XML::Simple results in:

$VAR1 = {
'firm' => {
'employee' => [
'Fred',
'Bill',
'Bob'
]
}
};


> I need to know how many employees?

Isn't that quite obvious from the data structure?

scalar @{ $VAR1->{firm}{employee} }


> I can easily extract each employeee but I only need the count. Is
> there an easier way?

An easier way than what?

hp

--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | > Wieso sollte man etwas erfinden was nicht
|_|_) | Sysadmin WSR | > ist?
| | | | Was sonst wäre der Sinn des Erfindens?
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | -- P. Einstein u. V. Gringmuth in desd

Hi

Thanks Mumia. When you said *forcearray* I realised my mistake.

I had been looking at an XML schema all morning with < and > everywhere and
had forgotten
that the returned value from XML::Simple was a *hash*. Hence as Tad says, I
was thinking of
*tags* but meant elements. Once I realised it was a hash, it was, as Peter
says, *obvious*.

So for those following the thread the complete answer would be:

my $xml=new XML::Simple (ForceArray => 1, suppressempty => 1); # create
object
my $data=$xml->XMLin("<needed>$request</needed>"); # read XML string
my @emp=@{$data->{'city'}->[0]->{'firm'}->[0]->{'employee'}};
my $no=scalar(@emp);

Sometimes, when your mind is focussed in one direction it is difficult to
see the problem.
Thanks Tad and Danke Peter. (I need to add [0] since I need to forcearray
for all the data).

Regards
John