function parseargs(s)
      local arg = {}
      string.gsub(s, "(%w+)=([\"'])(.-)%2", function (w, _, a)
        arg[w] = a
      end)
      return arg
    end
        
    function collect(s)
      local stack = {}
      local top = {}
      table.insert(stack, top)
      local ni,c,label,xarg, empty
      local i, j = 1, 1
      while true do
        ni,j,c,label,xarg, empty = string.find(s, "<(%/?)(%w+)(.-)(%/?)>", i)
        if not ni then break end
        local text = string.sub(s, i, ni-1)
        if not string.find(text, "^%s*$") then
          table.insert(top, text)
        end
        if empty == "/" then  -- empty element tag
          table.insert(top, {label=label, xarg=parseargs(xarg), empty=1})
        elseif c == "" then   -- start tag
          top = {label=label, xarg=parseargs(xarg)}
          table.insert(stack, top)   -- new level
        else  -- end tag
          local toclose = table.remove(stack)  -- remove top
          top = stack[#stack]
          if #stack < 1 then
            error("nothing to close with "..label)
          end
          if toclose.label ~= label then
            error("trying to close "..toclose.label.." with "..label)
          end
          table.insert(top, toclose)
        end
        i = j+1
      end
      local text = string.sub(s, i)
      if not string.find(text, "^%s*$") then
        table.insert(stack[#stack], text)
      end
      if #stack > 1 then
        error("unclosed "..stack[stack.n].label)
      end
      return stack[1]
    end

http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaXml

From: Roberto Ierusalimschy

Parses the "main" part of an XML string. It does not handle meta-data. Outputs to a table.

Example:
myVar = collect( myXml )
-- myVar would be a table/array of myXml

Pure Lua XML Parser

xml

Lua