if you have an xml node element like the following
<mesh name="myMesh" path="/blah/blah/blah.3ds">
<rotation x="25" y="0" z="0" />
</mesh>
The parser will never percieve mesh as having any children. I assume this is because of the '/' characters in the attribute value, the parser assumes the mesh element is self closing. If i remove the path attribute the parser will correctly be able to read the rotation node.