Ok, with apologies to Chris, borrowing his "loadxml" idea, here is a complete set of UDF's for loading/reading/writing/saving from XML files ... looks like this:

break on

$xml = LoadXml("e:\t.xml")

$= WriteXmlString($xml, "shawn/jose", 100)
$= WriteXmlString($xml, "shawn/jose/settings/form1/left", 123)

SaveXml($xml, "e:\t.xml")

$xml = 0

exit 1

[udf]
Code:

function LoadXml($filename)

 dim $, $rootNode

 $loadXml = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");

 if not $loadXml
  return
 endif

 if not $loadXml.Load($filename)

  $rootNode = $loadXml.createElement("root");

  if $rootNode

   $= $loadXml.AppendChild($rootNode);

  endif

 endif

endfunction

function SaveXml($xml, $filename)

 $SaveXml = $xml.Save($filename);

endfunction

function WriteXmlString($xml, $path, $value)

 dim $rootNode, $sectionNode;

 $sectionNode = $xml.SelectSingleNode("/root/" + $path);

 if not $sectionNode

  $sectionNode = $xml.documentElement

  for each $node in split($path,"/")

   $childNode = $xml.CreateElement($node)

   $sectionNode = $sectionNode.AppendChild($childNode)

  next

 endif

 $sectionNode.Text = $value;

 return

endfunction

function ReadXmlString($xml, $key, optional $defaultValue)

 dim $sectionNode

 $sectionNode = $xml.SelectSingleNode("/root/" + $key);

 if not $sectionNode
  $ReadXmlString = $defaultValue;
 else
  $ReadXmlString = $sectionNode.FirstChild.Text;
 endif

endfunction