diff --git a/popt/popt.pspec b/popt/popt.pspec
index d16bbddf..4cc19f07 100644
--- a/popt/popt.pspec
+++ b/popt/popt.pspec
@@ -20,10 +20,7 @@
       <Patch compressionType="gz">popt-1.7-uclibc.patch.gz</Patch>
     </Patches>
     <BuildDependencies>
-      <Dependency>
-	<Name>make</Name>
-	<VersionFrom>1.8</VersionFrom>
-      </Dependency>
+      <Dependency versionFrom="1.8"> make </Dependency>
     </BuildDependencies>
     <History>
       <Update>
@@ -49,9 +46,7 @@
     </Description>
     <Category>devel:library</Category>
     <RuntimeDependencies>
-      <Dependency>
-	<Name>gettext</Name>
-      </Dependency>
+      <Dependency>gettext</Dependency>
     </RuntimeDependencies>
     <Files>
       <Path fileType="sharedLib">/usr/lib/</Path>
diff --git a/src/specfile.py b/src/specfile.py
index 3de5d079..eebfb5c6 100644
--- a/src/specfile.py
+++ b/src/specfile.py
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ class PatchInfo:
         self.filename = getNodeText(node)
         self.compressionType = getNodeAttribute(node, "compressionType")
 
+class DepInfo:
+    def __init__(self, node):
+        self.package = getNodeText(node).strip()
+        self.versionFrom =  getNodeAttribute(node, "versionFrom")
+
 class SpecFile(XmlFile):
     """A class for reading/writing from/to a PSPEC (PISI SPEC) file."""
 
@@ -27,9 +32,14 @@ class SpecFile(XmlFile):
         patchElts = self.getChildElts("PSPEC/Source/Patches")
         patches = [ PatchInfo(p) for p in patchElts ]
         for x in patches:
-            print "fn:", x.filename
-            print "ct:", x.compressionType
-            
+            print "patch fn:", x.filename
+            print "patch ct:", x.compressionType
+        buildDepElts = self.getChildElts("PSPEC/Source/BuildDependencies")
+        buildDeps = [DepInfo(d) for d in buildDepElts]
+        for x in buildDeps:
+            print "patch nm:", x.package
+            print "patch vf:", x.versionFrom
+        
     def verify(self):
         """Verify PSPEC structures, are they what we want of them?"""
         return True
diff --git a/src/xmlfile.py b/src/xmlfile.py
index 42a503ff..318c33b8 100644
--- a/src/xmlfile.py
+++ b/src/xmlfile.py
@@ -25,6 +25,10 @@ def getNodeText(node):
     else:
         raise XmlError("getNodeText: Expected text node, got something else!")
 
+# get only child elements
+def getChildElts(node):
+    return filter(lambda x:x.nodeType==x.ELEMENT_NODE, node.childNodes)
+
 # xmlfile class that further abstracts a dom object
 
 class XmlFile(object):
@@ -49,7 +53,7 @@ class XmlFile(object):
         node = self.getNode(tagpath)
         return filter(lambda x:x.nodeType==type, node.childNodes)
 
-    # get only child elements, slightly better than Serdar's sol'n :> -- exa
+    # get only child elements
     def getChildElts(self, tagpath):
         """ returns the children of the given path, only with given type """
         node = self.getNode(tagpath)