use warnings; use strict; my @seg = ( [ 1, 1, 2, 1 ], [ 5, 5, 1, 5 ], [ 2, 3, 5, 3 ], [ 5, 3, 5, 5 ], [ 2, 1, 2, 3 ], [ 1, 5, 1, 1 ] ); use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper); my (%have, %want); while (my $seg = shift @seg) { my $have = join(",", @{$seg}[0,1]); my $want = join(",", @{$seg}[2,3]); print "we have $have\n"; if (my $wanted = delete $want{$have}) { print "something wants it\n"; $wanted->[4] = $seg; } else { print "nothing wants it yet\n"; $have{$have} = $seg; } last if @seg == 0; # don't want to make a circular reference print "we want $want\n"; if (my $had = delete $have{$want}) { print "found it\n"; $seg->[4] = $had; } else { print "didn't find it, asking for it\n"; $want{$want} = $seg; } } $Data::Dumper::Indent = 0; print Dumper values %have;