use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; sub proc{ my($pre, $cnt_cur, $end_brackets)=@_; my $buff; $buff = $pre->{data} ; if ($cnt_cur > $pre->{cnt}){ #next is children $buff .=' => {'; push(@$end_brackets, '}'); }elsif ( $cnt_cur == $pre->{cnt} ){ #next is brothers $buff .= ' => undef ,'; } else { $buff .= ' => undef ,'; for ( 1 .. ($pre->{cnt} - $cnt_cur) ){ #output right bracket till that depth $buff .= pop(@$end_brackets) . ","; } } return $buff; } my ($pre, $cnt, $ret, @end_brackets); $ret='{'; while(){ $cnt = $_ =~ s/\s{4}//g; $cnt = $cnt || 0; if ( $pre ){ $ret .= proc($pre, $cnt, \@end_brackets); } $pre={cnt => $cnt, data=>$_}; } $ret .= proc($pre, 0, \@end_brackets); $ret .= '}'; print Dumper eval($ret); __DATA__ one two three four three_another four_another five six seven eight nine ten 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24