dang it perl

gistfile1.txt

$ cat /tmp/foo.pl 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

print Dumper(XMLin('<xml attrib="foo&amp;bar"/>'));

$ perl5.12 /tmp/foo.pl 
$VAR1 = {
          'attrib' => 'foo&bar'
        };

$ perl5.8 /tmp/foo.pl 
$VAR1 = {
          'attrib' => 'foo&amp;bar'
        };