perl xml parser and dependency hell

Was trying to install a perl module from CPAN (Frontier::Daemon) which needed XML::Parser which just wouldn't install. Perl's package manager kept complaining about a missing expat.h file, followed by many lines of errors. yum said expat is up to date. Removing expat (in an effort to reinstall it) removed yum as well. Installing yum wasn't easy. Finally got the rpm for yum to work and installed CentOS's precompiled perl xml parser. perl was satisfied with this and installed Frontier::Daemon without further complaints.