gistfile1.xml

<root>
  <a>
    <b>123</b>
    <b>456</b>
    <b>789</b>
  </a>
  <a>
    <b>foo</b>
    </b>bar</b>
  </a>
</root>

I want to end up with
  {[
    a: [ b: 123, b: 456, b: 789],
    a: [ b: foo, b: bar ]
  ]}

or something approximately similar.
   

I'm a little confused at your proposed output. It looks like you're going for an array of arrays maybe since it doesn't make sense to have a hash of values having the same key.

You could try this:

template = [ '//a', [ 'b', 'text()' ] ];

Output:

[
    ["123","456","789"],
    ["foo","bar"]
]

Thanks for the response. I actually don't remember why I wanted this any longer. I know we're continuing to use Jath and it seems to be working fine. It's possible I didn't know what I was doing when I proposed this. :-)

I'll definitely keep your proposal in mind, should I discover a need for it again.