Simple example of how to parse Edict XML file with Perl and XML::LibXML

edict.pl

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::LibXML;

use encoding "utf-8";

my $file   = $ARGV[0];
my $parser = XML::LibXML->new();
my $doc    = $parser->parse_file($file);

# Output
# 明白    めいはく    obvious, clear, plain, evident, apparent
# ...
foreach my $entry ($doc->findnodes('./JMdict/entry')) {
  foreach my $keb ($entry->findnodes('./k_ele/keb')) {
    print $keb->to_literal . "\t";
  }
  foreach my $reb ($entry->findnodes('./r_ele/reb')) {
    print $reb->to_literal . "\t";
  }

  foreach my $sense ($entry->findnodes('./sense')) {
    my @glosses = map {
      $_->to_literal
    } $sense->findnodes('./gloss');
    print join(", ", @glosses);
  }

  print "\n";
}